Spork II
by The Invader Androgynous
Summary: Finished. Invader Zim fights his greatest enemy ever: HIMSELF. When a Zim from another dimension arrives to attempt to bump off Invader Zim, who will help him? Which Zim will prevail?
1. Murderer Zim

Spork II

_For all the little invaders-in-training who missed the original Spork, here's a rundown of the plot: GIR zapped Zim into an alternate universe, where he'd never killed Spork with his energy creature. The vicious tallest Spork ruled over a broken and dying Irken Empire. Reuniting the alternate world's Red and Purple, he defeated his alternate world self and, in a stroke of incredibly dumb luck, killed tallest Spork, clearing the way for alternative universe Purple and Red to become tallests. _

On his way back to his own universe, however, he was tackled by the bloodthirsty "Murderer Zim," the alternative universe's version of him. The two tumbled through the portal back to Invader Zim's home dimension.

It is there that our story begins…

***

It took awhile for Tak's eyes to adjust. Her head and neck hurt. She distinctly remembered being struck by something and the blinding white light that had followed before she collapsed into the dirt. She did not, on the flip side, remember what had hit her.

Her arms were bound above her head with thick silver wires, coiling from her wrists down to her elbows. Ever since she'd regained consciousness she'd been struggling to free herself from them.

Her legs were similarly bound together from the ankles up to the knees. The tips of her shoes barely brushed the ground when she squirmed on the ropes supporting her weight. A heavy metal block on her back seemed to have made her pack's mechanical legs unable to help her. Her shoulders had begun to sob with a dull ache that came from being hung for so long.

Her base refused to respond to her, let alone acknowledge her, and MiMi was still in the repair bay awaiting a new memory disk. "Whoever did this is going to pay and pay dearly," she snarled in her thick accent.

The door to her lab slid open with a dull hiss. Murderer Zim stood, outlined in light, a sandwich in one hand. He took a bite out of it as he leaned against the wall, looking her up and down. 

Of course, Tak didn't recognize that there was a difference between this Zim and the Invader Zim that she so truly hated. She thrashed violently against the binds holding her. "Zim! I should have known! I don't know how you managed to outwit me, but you won't get away with this! I'll slit you open and pull out your organs! I'll…"

Murderer Zim had sauntered across the room in as few steps as possible with his short legs. Lifting himself up on his spider legs, he grabbed her face violently in his fist. Then, without warning, he pressed his mouth hard against hers.

After the moment of initial shock wore off, Tak did what most strong-spirited women in her situation would have wanted to do, but would have been too socially repressed to do. She drew her legs back and, though hanging from her wrists in mid-air, delivered a dehabilitating kick to Murderer Zim's groin.

Murderer Zim, tough guy that he supposedly was, crumpled up in an instance with both his hands jammed firmly between his legs. He howled in pain and rolled back and forth, looking somewhat like a circus monkey as he banged into the legs of various tables in his agony.

After a good half an hour out of the room, he returned back to where he'd left Tak hanging. She noted with a broad smirk that he was limping very obviously, and had been holding frozen Delicious Weenies to his "man organ" in an attempt to bring down the swelling. 

"Okay. Perhaps I didn't introduce myself to you properly. My name is…"

"Shove it, Zim! I know who you are, and you will pay for this indignity!" she hissed, trashing against her chains.

Murderer Zim lowered his eyes and reached into his pocket, drawing out a long, thin knife in a blue decorative sheath. Tak's taunts instantly feel to silence, her chest heaving. She hadn't considered the fact that she wasn't exactly indestructible. Sure, she'd known that she'd one day die, but she hadn't expected it to be at Zim's hands while bound and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Murderer Zim drew his knife out of its sheath, drawing his tongue along the sharp edge of the blade. A bit of blood dripped from his cut tongue and onto the blade, a glistening red against the sheen of silver. 

He grabbed her antennae and forced her head back, placing the blade against her throat. Her eyes were half-shut, her breathing shallow. She didn't dare move, as she could feel the sharp tip digging into her smooth green skin.

"Listen to me, for the last time. I am NOT Zim. Well, I am a Zim, but I'm not that pathetic Invader Zim. My name is Murderer Zim, and I'm here from another dimension."

"You… expect… me to swallow… that?" Tak choked, trying not to hurt herself any more than possible.

"I'll prove it to you. I want your help in killing Invader Zim. You're the only other Irken I've found on this planet, and I've been monitoring signals using your base since I knocked you out. I want Invader Zim's head on a platter for what he did to me!"

"You, too?" she asked, still mostly not believing his story. Zim must have hit himself on the head good if he honestly believed what he was saying. If it was a trick, he must think she was pretty stupid to fall for it. 

Murderer Zim drew the blade slowly from her chin down her neck. Then, with a single sharp slash, he cut through the front of her uniform open from the neck all the way down her shirt. 

Leaving her too stunned to start screaming and cussing at him, he left the room. Pausing in the doorway, he smiled. "I'll give you an hour to make up your mind. You can say yes, or…" he spun the blade in his hand, "I'll cut your skin next time."

Murderer Zim went for a walk around Tak's base, inspecting everything. The only thing that failed to impress him was her false father. Not that the idea didn't impress him, but the very fact that he was a human disgusted Murderer Zim. 

"How can she stand to touch such horrible meat creatures, let alone live among them as one of them? Something must not be right with that girl…" he grinned, drawing a finger along the edges of his thin mouth. "But she's still so beautiful, so fiery…" 

Murderer Zim was cut off in his thoughts by a piece of plaster falling from the ceiling. Plaster doesn't just fall out of ceilings as impeccably made as Tak's base's ceiling was… he lifted his head, eyes narrowing darkly.

He spotted the small, black-clothed form instantly. The small form spotted that it was being spotted, and made a break for it across the ceiling. Firing up the boosters in his mechanical legs, Murderer Zim launched himself towards the ceiling and crawled across it like a maniacal spider.

The thing he was chasing was fast-amazingly fast. Murderer Zim swung a mechanical leg out, missing by bare centimeters. Oh, this was good fun!

The stranger dropped to the bare concrete, Murderer Zim in hot pursuit. He was amazed that his query should know Tak's base better than he did, when he'd been studying the plans the entire time he'd been searching for incoming or outgoing Irken signals on the planet. Could this be an Irken who simply hadn't been making any messages? It had to be! No other species could move so deftly through Irken technology without getting a limb severed by a laser.

It wasn't until the last possible moment that the intruder slipped up. He tried to make a perfect dive into a drain pipe, which would have taken him straight to the outside world where the undisguised Murderer Zim would not have been able to follow. But the strange little creature in black jumped too soon, and ended up hanging miserably from the pipe, legs dangling in air.

He was just dragging himself over the edge when Murderer Zim landed heavily on all four spider legs in front of him, grabbing him by the collar and snatching him up. Ripping off the mask, Murderer Zim stared in horror and shock.

"You're a human!" A beast of hair and meat products had managed to give _him_ such a chase? It just wasn't possible!

"You're an Irken!" the human snapped back. He wasn't sure if it was a "chy-ld" or simply a very small "ay-dolt". He did notice, however, how disproportionately large the human's head was in comparison to his body. "Whatever you and Tak are planning, you might as well forget it, because I'll stop you! I'll always stop you!"

"You have me confused with someone else," Murderer Zim snorted. "I want off of your planet as fast as I can get off of it! The whole thing smells like feet." He wrinkled up his antennae. "I only want Invader Zim's head on a plate, then I'm out of here."

"But you ARE Zim!" Dib argued, thinking that Zim was trying to pull something. 

"I am Murderer Zim. The Zim you have issue with is Invader Zim, and I'm afraid whatever it is you're just going to forget it, for I have claimed the rights to render his useless head from his body!"

Unlike Tak, Dib was strangely easy to win over. "You're Zim and you want to… kill Zim?"

"I came here by accident from another dimension. It was your Invader Zim's fault for shaming me in that dimension, and then bringing me to this horrible germ-infested health trap!" Murderer Zim ranted, shaking out his mechanical legs as if afraid they were covered in pathogens just waiting to make him sick.

"You're a bit more… coherent than Zim ever was. But not by much."

Murderer Zim raised an eye ridge. "I'll take that as a compliment. I'll also take that," Murderer Zim commented, ripping the camera Dib was hiding behind his back away from him. "No pictures, please!" he said cheerily. 

"You're not going to get away with whatever you're trying to pull… Something whatever you are Zim!"

"That's Murderer Zim to you. Now stay out of my way and I won't have to hurt you." He set Dib down and smirked grotesquely at the child. "And remember… Zim's head is MINE." With that, he pushed Dib backwards and listened to him scream and he shot out of the drain. Murderer Zim grinned to himself. He almost did hope to see that boy again… there, it seemed, was an enemy potentially worthy of his genius.

"Computer, close off that entrance with a solid, impenetrable screen. We don't want meat creatures building nests in it, after all," he ordered, stalking off. The hacked computer saluted loyally and set to work on Murderer Zim's commands.

After wasting an hour berating every channel the television in Tak's "normal girl" room, which she'd built into the Mansion-base for show in case "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" should want to drop by, Murderer Zim rose to his feet.

It was time to find out if he had a partner or a corpse to dispose of.


	2. Justin, BurgerBaron

Murderer Zim smiled quietly to himself. It seemed his little prisoner had cried herself to sleep in the hour that he'd been gone. Her face was streaked with drying liquid, her head was down, and her eyes were shut.

Right. Like he was falling for that. "You might as well stop pretending. I'm not going to let you down."

Tak lifted her face, her dark violet eyes flashing with internal rage. Murderer Zim continued to smile. To the ghost of Spork, she was beautiful when she was mad. "Are you going to help me or not?" he asked smoothly, cracking his knuckles.

"All right, but don't think I'm going to let you live when this is over…"

"I never expected anything more from you," he smirked. "So you agree to help me?"

"Fine," she muttered, looking away.

"Then you won't object to this," Murderer Zim sneered, grabbing her by the pack and slamming something down between her body and the pack. A shock went through her body and she screamed, thrashing so violently against her binds that the metal cut through the skin and sent a thin drizzle of Irken blood down her arms.

He finally released the metal holds, letting Tak collapse to the ground. Her arms twitched when she tried to move them; her legs weren't working at all. "What did you do to me?" she managed to choke out.

"Ever heard of a Slave Chip?" The blank look on her face told him that she hadn't. "Something I brought over from my universe. I just clipped it to your pack. Any attempt to disobey me, double cross me or remove the chip and you'll get another nasty shock like that. And I should mention, the shocks get meaner with each… shall we say… incident?"

Her face still looked blank from the pain, but the flicker of rage was still in her eyes. She hates me, Murderer Zim mused to himself. That's okay. I like 'em that way. Keeps them on their toes more than if they liked me. 

"Now, take me to your disguise making center. I have no desire to spend my time cooped up in this metal meat emporium." Still a bit dazed, Tak merely lay sprawled out on the ground. He grabbed her arm and forced her to her feet, pushing her ahead of him. "Better get going before the chip kicks in again!" he chirped brightly, grinning like a jack-o-lantern. 

Murderer Zim was less than impressed by Tak's selection of male-oriented disguises. "I've been watching your television. This society values beauty the way we value tallness. I want to be pretty, not pasty," he sneered. He pushed her away from the controls. "I'll design my own disguise."

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her make a fist and then release it. It usually didn't take many shocks for someone carrying the chip to learn their place. He was glad she was a quick learner; he had very big plans for her, indeed. 

After a long period of deciding, he emerged from the machine with his new holographic disguise. It had deep, soul-piercing brown eyes and blackish hair with brown and tan highlights. His skin was a light tan color, just dark enough to have color in it but not dark enough to make him susceptible to racial profiling. A pair of dark blue round sunglasses with round lenses sat on the end of his holographic nose.

"You shall introduce me to your peers as your cousin, the son of a wealthy burger-baron," he informed her in a thick but false Spanish accent. "I shall be an exchange student from the deepest depths of Peru, where my father fell in love with a beautiful Peruvian woman and sired me. You will inform the females that I have more money than I know what to do with, and that I am very lonely for companionship. In other words, I'm a rich stud."

Tak didn't know whether to laugh or throw up. Before she could voice her doubts, however, he cut her off. "You are too worried about "blending in," about humans seeing through your disguise. I say these humans are so stupid I could walk out in public naked and they wouldn't recognize me for what I truly am. I will take the sheep-like minds of these "popular girls" and make them my unknowing but willing servants. After all, why do for yourself what others can do for you?"

Tak couldn't argue with that logic, even if it was robots she usually had serving her. Murderer Zim waved off her silence with one tanned hand. "You will arrange for one of those long moving vehicles… what was it again? A lime-o-seen? Yes, a lime-o-seen to take us to the Skool. I want to arrive in a style benefiting a future Burger heir. But for now, I am tired. Show me to your bedroom."

"You're not sleeping in my bed," Tak snapped.

He looked coldly at her. "I would have thought one shock would have been enough to teach you not to talk back. Please don't infuriate the device."

"You can have the couch," she said firmly, crossing her arms over her chest. She'd put the front of her uniform back together with staples while he'd been designing a disguise, as he'd refused to let her leave the room while he worked even to get a new one. Bits of her flesh showed through the repairs, having an intoxicating effect on Murderer Zim. The only "female" he'd been allowed to see more skin than only her face on back home had been Spork's pet, Violet. Many a times Spork had issued the current kill command from atop her slender frame.

"I don't want to sleep on the couch," he whined loudly. "Pleaaaase let me sleep in the bed?" he asked, giving her large eyes filled with shiny lights.

"If you insist, I'll have the computer generate a bed for you. But I don't know where you'll put it." 

"Anywhere is fine. I just want to sleep in a bed," he smiled. Give it time. He'd get what he wanted eventually. After all, he had plenty of time before he killed Invader Zim to work on her. "I'm going to use your dust shower now, okay? Thanks!" he smiled as he dodged into the bathroom, leaving Tak behind to fume like a volcano preparing to explode. 

After a long, hot, well-deserved dust shower he emerged, shaking fine sand off of his arms. He brushed back his antennae, preening and admiring his eye color in a mirror. "Zim, you are one handsome dude," he preened to himself. 

He was also one stark naked dude. As he rounded a corner Tak let out a squeal of shock and disgust and dropped everything she was carrying, throwing her hands over her eyes.

Mistaking the disgust for another emotion, Murder Zim puffed out his chest. Guess she's never seen a man as manly as me before, he chuckled mentally to himself. He strutted past her, intentionally failing to cover himself whatsoever. 

It wasn't until Tak was absolutely sure that he was gone that she dared uncover her eyes. She'd thought Invader Zim was bad… at least he hadn't been NAKED when he'd caused her to fail her test. 

"Oh gods, I don't think I would have been able to take that…" Tak muttered to herself. Deciding to forgo her nightly shower in favor of not taking the chance of being peeped at by Murderer aka Pervert Zim, she slipped into her night robe and under her sheets. She only hoped tomorrow wouldn't go so badly.

The sleek black limousine pulling up in front Skool did gather a decent amount of attention, but not from the children. They were too busy being wrapped up in their own little lives to really notice. It did, however, gain lots of attention from the people who lived across the street, grumbling under their breaths and across fences about how "people with enough money to hire a limo to send their kids to school ought to give some of it to us!"

Tak pretty much ignored Murderer Zim as he prattled off his planned speech about who he was and where he came from. She was too busy wondering if there really, really was an underground classroom. Damn, she thought. Doesn't he ever get tired of talking about himself? But he was doing a pretty good job of making up a backstory for himself. Maybe he played too many role play games, Tak snickered quietly to herself.

"So if I do anything odd, please forgive me as I have not quite learned American culture yet," he professed through the thick accent.

"Now sit down and don't say another word until you graduate," Ms. Bitters snarled, pointing a long finger at a newly vacated desk in the center of the room. 

Murderer Zim, who had given his human name as "Justin" to seem more normal, found himself highly disappointed. He'd prepared his best spine-chilling evil glare for Invader Zim… and Invader Zim was too busy doodling little decapitated stick figures to even bat an eye in his direction.

He must be really sure of himself to ignore what a threat I am. I will make him pay for his ignorance. Oh, how I shall laugh as he falls screaming and writhing at my fee…

"Hey idiot, the lunch bell rang," Tak's voice sounded in his holographic ears. He looked up at her in annoyance.

"You ruined my mental ranting!" he cried angrily.

At lunch, Murderer Zim wrinkled his nose at the cafeteria food. After all, he hadn't been up all night researching human life to be fed from the bottom of the slop barrel. He whipped out his cell phone, which was actually a cleverly disguised Irken device. "How wants pizza?" he asked loudly.

Of course, a throng immediately flocked to him, bowling Tak over. As she crawled out from beneath the stampeding piles of Nike and Adidas shoes she looked around the cafeteria. Both Invader Zim and Dib were missing, which slightly bothered her. "Justin" had introduced himself as her cousin. That should have set off warning bells in Dib's oversized head.

Leaving Murderer Zim behind to devour mounds of sticky cheese pizza with his "new friends," Tak stalked down the hall. She was going to find Zim and Dib. Most likely, she'd find them together, cleverly spying on one another. Of course, neither would think the other one noticed or was doing any spying themselves.

Men! More and more, Tak was beginning to wonder if the old adage about "only enough blood to run one head at a time" was true. It was too bad that she didn't like women enough to give up on men entirely. 

Meanwhile, back in the cafeteria, Murderer Zim was making quite a few friends. Not real, true, people you could tell anything to friends, but he didn't particularly care to get close enough to stink beasts for that purpose. No, he was making shallow suck-up to you for your money friends to form his entourage. Even the most trained generals need an army, he smiled to himself as he watched the other kids mill around him.

"What do you guys say we go hang out at the mall tonight and look too cool to be there?" he suggested to the group. "We can make fun of people who can't afford cars on the bus ride over."

"Sounds like a plan," the blonde girl with hoops pierced into her ears agreed. Her loyal group of lackeys all nodded like brain-dead lapdogs. Because the popular girl was agreeing to it, everyone else did too. Even Zita, who hadn't been keen on the idea of warming up to someone who was related to the freakish Tak, gave her high and mighty consent to spending an afternoon at a place pretending she didn't want to be there.

As soon as the bell rang, Murderer Zim caught up with Tak and put an arm on her shoulder. "Go back to the base and start planning our offensive against Zim, okay? I'm going to prime our army," he whispered.

"Prime our army my ass," Tak hissed. "I heard about your plans to go hang out at the mall, and I also heard Zita telling another girl not to let me find out about it because they didn't want any "freaks" tagging along… relatives or not, and I quote!" Tak snarled, her voice increasing in volume with each word. She seemed to be forgetting that they were still in the classroom. The last few students trickling out of the room, as well as Dib, had stopped to watch the argument.

The Justin hologram's eyes became soft. "Tak, you're not a freak…"

He reached out to take comfort her, but she slapped his hand away. "Have fun at the mall. I'm going home," she snapped, shoving her way through the crowd of onlookers. Except for Dib, the crowd quickly dispersed. A few rushed to Justin's side to assure him that he would have been correct in calling her a freak. After all, she kept to herself and didn't play any sports. What kind of decent person didn't play any sports?

Murderer Zim was torn between pursuing building his army and running after Tak. After all, until Spork had taken him under his wing and taught him to be a deadly assassin, he'd been nothing more than a "short freak" himself. He could still feel the sting of the taunts like whips across his memory.

Eventually, the army won out. Tak would be there when he got home. The other kids would not. 

Meanwhile, Dib rushed home to busily begin compiling a database on what he'd seen and heard over the past two days. He'd fought an Irken who looked exactly like Zim in Tak's base, and now what was obviously an Irken had arrived in his classroom posing as an exchange student. One in the same, or two different Irkens, he pondered as his fingers flew over the keys to his battered black laptop. The chance that they were the same seemed 90% likely, but a paranormal investigator in training couldn't afford to overlook that last ten percent.

Then again, he thought, Tak didn't seem to get along with this new Irken. Maybe he'd been sent by their superiors to do some task for some…abet hideously, demented, evil… reason. If that were the truth, it could be imperative to survival of the entire human race that he find out what this new Irken was up to. 


	3. The Chapter What Came from All That Spac...

Back at the mall, Murderer Zim and his crew had taken over the arcade. He was sitting on top of an out of order NFL game, watching two guys duke it out with scantily clad female characters on Soul Caliber II. If I were a human, I'd want to put more clothes on, not less, he thought in disgust.

"I don't know what you think you're trying to pull, but this my planet!" a voice quietly hissed. "Tak's _cousin._"

Murderer Zim pivoted on the machine, smiling down at Invader Zim. "So you finally decide to show your bad self?" he mocked. "Go away. We don't have any room for crazy people here." In all honestly he'd been disappointed by the great Invader Zim's costume. Even Tak had a better costume, and he remembered sharply how pathetic Spork had always said females were at doing anything for themselves. 

A couple of popular girls snickered into their drinks at Justin's snide remarks. Zim ignored them, focusing all his attention and anger on the stranger looking down on him. "The almighty tallests appointed me to this planet personally! Get your own planet!"

"I don't want your planet," Murderer Zim whispered after making sure no one was listening close enough to make out his words. "I want your head on a stick for what you did to Spork."

After the twenty-three minutes it took Zim to piece together exactly who he was talking to in reference to the Spork comment, Zim jumped up and pointed a long, accusing finger at Justin. "YOU!" he cried. "You dimension hopping fiend!"

"Yes. Me. Now will you leave?"

"Fine. I will depart from this noisy bin of brain-rotting entertainment, but know that I won't let my guard down for even an instant!" With that, Zim turned around no his heel and proudly marched straight into the side of another game.

After bouncing off the game and taking a moment to regather his wounded dignity, Zim stalked out of the arcade with the laughter of the popular kids and his wretched alternative world self ringing in his antennae.

Around ten, after mall security had chased the kids back out to their parents waiting SUV's, Murderer Zim wound his way back towards Tak's base. The night was pleasant, a hot breeze blowing on his neck. Overhead, the clouds made funny noises. Murderer Zim looked up in bored curiosity. A bright blue light cut through the air, slicing noisily as it stretched from the heavens to the Earth. It was almost pretty.

He continued walking along, jumping over leaves and cracks in the sidewalk. The use of colors other than blue in decorating and dressing fascinated and amazed the short young Irken. Maybe it wasn't such a bad planet after all…

He quickly turned his opinion back around when the clouds overhead opened wide and let down a spout of acid from the sky. Murderer Zim screeched loudly, smoke rising off his limbs and he frantically dashed for the nearest dry area, a small spot under a tree covered in thick leaves. He even managed to claw his way half way up the tree from the sheer adrenaline rush caused by the pain ripping through his skinny limbs.

Huddled against the tree, he shivered as his arms gave off wisps of smoke from dissolving skin. His fingers shook so bad it took him three tries to correctly call the Taxi Service. Even when the cab arrived, the driver looked suspiciously at him. "Young kid like you shouldn't be smoking. Give yourself cancer by twenty, make your poor momma cry."

"Thank you for your concern, but I can take care of myself," the angered Irken growled, his arms crossed over his chest as he slumped down in the back of the taxi. The taxi driver kept looking oddly at him back through the rear view mirror, but Murderer Zim didn't care. He was too pissed off to care.

The taxi let him off in front of Tak's house. "Ah, what would I do without corporate credit cards?" he wondered aloud as he paid the driver and then dashed up the front drive, making in the door with minimal skin loss.

"TAK! Why didn't you tell me about the acid-spewing sky on this planet?" he shouted angrily as he stormed through the base, drying himself with a towel he'd had the computer bring him. "Tak? TAK!"

The base was dark, the robots working their usual tasks in solitude. "Tak?" he asked, his voice little more than a squeal. Outside the window, more blue electricity ripped through the sky. "She can't be out there in that, can she…?" he muttered, peering out the window.

A well-timed flash of lightning illuminated a form limping up the driveway. Throwing a sheet over his head, Murderer Zim braved running out into the head of the storm, the terrifying winds whipping acid into his face. 

"Tak!" he cried, throwing the sheet around her as she collapsed into his arms. "You shouldn't have been out in the rain! Why didn't you call a taxi?" he shouted angrily, hefting the girl up and rushing back inside the safety of the base.

"Could- couldn't- you took- the monies…" she shivered. "Couldn't pay driver…"

"Why didn't you stay where you were, you stupid girl?" he asked, rushing through the base with her. His arms and legs stung from the water she was dripping on him.

"Why do you care… what happens… to me… just a… freak," she muttered, her eyes shutting and her head falling back.

Frantically, Murderer Zim laid her down on top of a metal counter-top, deactivating her disguise. Her arms were covered is thick burn marks, the skin looking about as good as microwaved cheese sticks. Murderer Zim let out a low whistle. Outside of Violet's workplace he hadn't seen such wounding.

"Computer, hurry! Get to work on helping her!" he ordered. As the computer arms descended on the injured girl, Murderer Zim suddenly felt the more helpless than he'd felt in a long time…

Back in Invader Zim's lab, GIR sat in the window, admiring the rain coming down. "Master, Master, I wanna run outside and catch the droppies on my tongue!" he called brightly, not noticing that his master was no longer in the room.

As it was, Invader Zim was busily constructing what he hopped to be a spy device to implant into Tak's lair. He'd have to be extra-careful when dealing with her. The last two times she'd managed to find the spy devices, corner him at Skool, and use them to cause bodily injury to him.

The new one he was working on looked like a small green bug with little red spots on its back. It would have wings, and could mimic a real bug in order to avoid detection. All in all, Zim was rather proud with his plans for it. 

If that phony alternative world Zim thought he was half of a match for the original Zim, then he was sadly mistaken! "I beat him once, I bet her once, I'll beat them both again!" he swore, shaking his fist at nothing.

"Actually, Gaz beat Tak," the computer corrected. If it had known what had gone on in the other universe, it would have pointed out that Invader Zim's victory over Murderer Zim had been not a real victory but a fluke of dumb luck and an opponent who had run off screaming in anger.

"I don't pay you to contradict me!" Zim snapped.

The computer sighed. There was no point in pointing out that he didn't pay the computer at all. He never listened. So, in all fairness, the computer decided not to inform him that he was crossing two wires that should not have been together dangerously close to one another. The loud boom and rising smoke that resulted almost made up for not getting paid, thought the computer.

It more than made up for the cost of implanting a spy camera in Zim's base to Dib, who was laughing so hysterically that he fell out of his desk chair and ended up rolling around on the floor.

Gaz threw open the door, her violet hair in perfect condition despite the fact that her clothes were still slightly damp from having been out in the rain. "Your laughter is making me want to kill, Dib," she said threateningly, never opening either of her eyes. Sometimes Dib wondered how the hell his sister managed to see where she was going, let alone what was on her video screen. 

"This isn't only your house, you know!" Dib retorted, thinking he was far more clever than he actually was. 

Gaz paused for only a moment. "You just don't get it Dib, do you? You just don't get it," she snarled, turning heel and exiting his room. The door slammed violently shut behind her, even though she hadn't touched it. A picture fell off Dib's wall with a loud crash.

Dib cringed, then relaxed and signed. Time to find the broom. At least watching Zim get smoked was a good remedy for the home-life blues. He shrugged and figured he would set it on loop while he cleaned. Taking a momentary break before he would begin cleaning, Dib leaned up against the glass in his window, watching the rain.

It was funny how he used to hate the rain. He couldn't go spying in the rain without coming home with a nasty cold. Weird things went on the rain, things he couldn't document because the water could clog up his camera's lens. Since the Irkens had arrived, rain had become a comforting thing to him. The Irkens didn't move around in the rain. When it rained was the one true time he felt safe, like the Irkens couldn't get him. Wouldn't get him. The rain had become his invincibility shield, or so he liked to think.

Leaving those silly thoughts behind him, Dib went to get the broom. 

Back at Tak's base, Murderer Zim lay back in a chair, his disguise shed, looking down at his hands. She couldn't die. He hadn't gotten a chance to apologize for making her feel like a freak yet. 

In his head, he thought back to training. He remembered being called "shorty, freak, worthless"… and those were the NICE names he'd been called. He remembered how it had hurt, how it had cut straight through to the very marrow of his bones.

He remembered not wanting to make anyone else feel like that as he brushed back her antennae, watching the computer work feverishly on her. An occasional moan or whimper was the only sign she gave of being alive at all. In the long run, it was probably better for her not to be conscious of the pain she was enduring.

He regretted having to leave her to do more research on human life, but he had no choice in the matter. "Please get well," he whispered. For the first time in his life, Murderer Zim was truly concerned about someone other than himself. Sure, he'd adored Spork, but as a fatherly figure and a master. He wouldn't have waited by Spork's bedside if Spork had fallen deathly ill. 

Besides, she hated him. She hated him with every cell of her body. It was in her eyes when she looked at him; it was in her voice when she spoke to him. And why shouldn't she hate him? He'd made a slave out of her, threatened her with death, and had taken over her base. He'd hate someone who had done that to him, too. He'd hate them almost as much as he hated Invader Zim for killing Spork.

He pounded a fist against the wall. "NO!" he cried into the empty darkness. "ZIM does not fall in love! ZIM is powerful! ZIM has no need for stupid, worthless emotions!"

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. ZIM, it seemed, was lying to himself. 


	4. Puberty

A/N: *makes sad eyes at you.* I know you are reading this. Why won't you review for me? End A/N.

***

Murderer Zim was awakened by the computer sounding an alarm. "Enemy spy probe detected during routine scan!" the computer informed him practically. "Shall I destroy it?" The computer waited eagerly, hovering about his head as if gleefully anticipating the moment when he'd order it to destroy the probe. Maybe Tak's computer just likes smashing things, Murderer Zim thought dully.

"No," Murderer Zim ordered, sitting upright in his chair. "Track it. I want to know who is spying on me so I can pay them a personal visit." He glanced over at the still-unconscious Tak, quietly sleeping with oxygen tubes running down her throat.

"Yes, sir," the computer responded, Irken symbols flying across the screen. 

"After all, what good is stomping on individual ants if you can't kill the Queen?" Murderer Zim muttered to himself, watching the flying numbers.

"Location of source feed pinpointed. Printing coordinates now."

Snatching the print out, Murderer Zim cut through the silence of the night He was glad that the rain had finished coming down. He didn't like the rain, but he still had to be careful to avoid the wet on the sidewalks. He bounded over fences and across roofs on his mechanical legs, nothing more than a spidery shadow to those few night owls that managed to catch a glimpse of him and wonder what the hell they had just seen.

The house he skidded to a stop in front of was a deep blue-purple, surrounded by a protective energy field. Murderer Zim was unimpressed; the energy shield couldn't have kept out a determined puppy. Leaping agilely over it he crossed the lush, over-fertilized lawn. He climbed up the side of the house, following the satellite surveillance feed the computer had provided him with. 

His mechanical spider legs left little pits in the side of the house as he ascended to Dib's window. Slowly, he raised his dark red eyes over the ledge of the window and peeped in.

Dib was sitting with his back to the window, writing something on legal paper. His hair was hanging slightly limply against his body, damp from his afternoon shower. His trench coat lay forlornly on the end of his bed. 

All the better for me if he's not paying attention, thought Murderer Zim. He slowly extended one cold metal spider leg and began quietly melting his way through the glass on the window. The only sound it made a faint little sizzling, barely audible above the sound of the CD player resting on Dib's desk. 

The glass fell away easily. Murderer Zim was as silent as possible as he placed the glass on the roof and crawled through the window. The big headed child doesn't even notice me, he thought with a small chuckle.

The second his foot set down on the carpet, however, a blaring alarm sounded. Murderer Zim screeched as Dib whirled around, water gun in hand. "Freeze, alien scum sucker!" Dib cried dramatically. He'd struck a pose that was sheer anime; not that Murderer Zim knew what anime was in any case.

"Anything, anything! Just turn off that alarm!" Murderer Zim cried, cringing in pain from the noise.

Dib flipped a switch and silence ensued. Murderer Zim, however, found himself staring down the barrel of a long, odd-looking green gun. It was only a water gun, but Murderer Zim had no way of knowing that. He hissed angrily, thinking he was up against some advanced alien technology.

Out of the corner of his eye, Murderer Zim noticed Dib's laptop. On it, security camera displays were showing of Zim's base as well as Tak's base. One of them switched over to Tak lying on her back, a ventilation tube hooked over her mouth, her arms wrapped in bandages. And, Murderer Zim noticed, she was covered in only a thin sheet.

That… that pervert, Murderer Zim fumed inwardly. He let out a shout of rage, leaping forward. Caught by surprise, Dib stumped backwards, tripping over a digital camera left on his floor. As he fell backwards Murderer Zim kicked upward, hitting the water gun and causing it to fly straight up in the air.

As Dib fell flat on his back, letting out an "oof" from the dull pain the impact caused, Murderer Zim snatched the gun out of the air and pointed it straight at Dib's head. Lying on his side, Dib looked up and into the barrel of the gun. 

"HOW DARE YOU PEEK AT A LADY LIKE THAT?" he snarled, his hands shaking as he held the gun. "YOU DISGUSTING STINK MONSTER!"

Dib crawled backwards, hearing a thud as his back met with the wall. Murderer Zim stood between him and the wall. "Ga…" he began to shout.

Murderer Zim kicked him across the face, sending his body sideways. His glasses fell off and skittered across the floor, leaving Dib nearly blinded. A sticky smear of blood ran down his pale skin from where Murderer Zim's boot had hit. 

Murderer Zim stepped down hard on his hand as Dib felt across the carpet, trying to find his glasses. Wincing in pain, Dib attempted to pull his hand free. Murderer Zim stepped down harder. Electric shots of pain shot through the nerves, and Dib heard small bones crunching.

"Get ready to die!" Murderer Zim screeched, planting the water gun against Dib's head. Feeling satisfied, he pulled the trigger.

Thus, Murderer Zim was more than confused when Dib started laughing hysterically, despite his probably broken wrist. "But… I shot you!" he cried in irritation, shooting Dib repeatedly in the head and chest with the water gun. "What the hell?" Murderer Zim asked, trying to see into the chamber where the bullets should be. A bit of water dripped out of the gun and into his eye, causing him to run around the room screaming in hideous pain.

His glasses regained, Dib tucked the wounded hand into his armpit and continued to rock with laughter. His ribs ached from laughing so hard that it nearly canceled out the pain on crunched bones and nerves. Murderer Zim, meanwhile, was running blindly around the room in circles while cursing enough in Irken to shame even the hardest soldier.

In his panic, Murderer Zim slammed into Dib's desk. The impact jarred the computer to pop up the video playback window. Through his one good eye, Murderer Zim watched in fascination as Invader Zim's new spy bug exploded, turning Zim's green face to black ash. 

Murderer Zim couldn't help it. Despite the pain in his eye, he collapsed to the floor, laughing nearly as hard as Dib. "That's GREAT! That's great, great, GREAT!" he howled, pounding a fist on the floor. "Got any more?"

"Are you kidding? I have a Zim bloopers reel… hey, wait a minute! You're Zim! You shouldn't find your own pain funny!"

Murderer Zim attempted to straighten out, still unable to open his water-wounded eye. He clamped a gloved hand over it. "I told you already… I am Murderer Zim, and I find Invader Zim's pain very, very funny." He paused. "Sorry about breaking your hand, by the way."

For some reason, that set them both off into hysterical giggles again. Really, a broken hand probably wasn't funny, but neither of them was in a proper mindset at the moment. 

When there was a break in the laughter, Murderer Zim smiled. "Yes, yes, I want to see your bloopers reel!"

Dib hesitated. This could very well seemed like a trick, but Invader Zim also didn't seem that clever. Or that able to laugh at his own pain and setbacks. At any rate, even if it wasn't Zim, it was another Irken. Why should he trust any of those planet hopping space looters?

"Do you have an extra copy? I really need to get back to the base…" he said, his voice drifting off as he looked back over his shoulder. He wanted to be there when she came too. He didn't want her to think he'd abandoned her. 

"I… suppose I do…," Dib said hesitantly.

"Look, I'm not after your planet, which I understand is your main concern. I only want my revenge on Invader Zim, and them I'm going home to my own dimension. I'm not a threat. Not that I expect you to believe that, but I'm telling the truth." He paused. "Want to come back to Tak's base with me and watch them together? I'll make popcorn."

"No thanks, but I'm not keen on walking into death traps," Dib retorted. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, his broken hand had begun to throb dully. Damn, he was going to have to go to the Emergency Room. That meant not only explaining it to his dad, but also bearing the fat nurse laughing and asking if he injured it while staking a vampire.

"Suit yourself," he commented dully. "Can I take the disk and go?"

"There should be an extra on that shelving unit," Dib gestured with his head, as he was using his good arm to cradle his damaged hand. Murderer Zim strutted over to the unit.

"You're right. Here it is," he said dully, tucking the disk under his arm. "I wouldn't suggest you spy on Tak again, lest I come back and break your legs." With that, he departed back out the window he'd come in, leaving Dib in a crumpled heap on the floor of his own bedroom. 

As soon as Murderer Zim was too far gone to be implicated in breaking Dib's hand, a voiced shouted from the hallway "What was all that screaming?" Professor Membrane threw open the door to find his son sprawled across the floor, studying fingers that were rapidly turning black and blue.

Professor Membrane misunderstood exactly how Dib had injured his hand. Bending down, he put a gloved palm on Dib's shoulder. "Son, I hadn't been noticing how mature you were getting! It's time the two of us sat down and talked about 'the birds and the bees."

Dib stared up at his father, praying he wouldn't start laughing again. It wasn't the appropriate time, and the Professor wouldn't understand. "Oh, I already know all about that stuff… I mean, I watch television movies."

After the Professor contorted around for a few moments in irritation at Dib's nonchalant answer, he grabbed Dib by the good arm and dragged him downstairs, throwing him on the couch. Dib's hand had begun to ache like never before by that time, but there was no point in trying to explain that to his father. He never listened anyway.

"Son, as a good father I should be having this talk with you. I've put it off long enough. Now," the Professor said, pulling a videotape off the shelves. "Watch this video I recorded about the scientific effects of pu-ber-ty. If you have any questions, the video tape has numbers you can call at the end of it. I'll be in my lab." With that, the professor was gone.

Dib sighed, flicked off the television, and made his way to the phone hanging on the wall. "Hello, 911? Yes, I need…" he sighed. "Yes, I am the vampire hunting kid. No, I did not put a stake through my foot again." 


	5. Freak!

Author Note of Doom: Sorry that some of my other stuff has been postponed for this, but I'm on a role with this story and loving it, and I don't want to lose my momentum.

***

Murderer Zim was sitting in the dark, tears of laughter still streaked down his face from the blooper reel, when a soft voice moaned behind him. He whirled around in his wheeled chair, taking Tak's scared hand in his. "How are you feeling?" he asked gently.

"Like I got run over by a two-ton bus," Tak answered, her voice hoarse.

"Don't strain yourself. Do you need anything? Soda? Juice? Lemonade?"

She shook her head, her gauze wrapped antennae swinging back and forth like long pendulums. He pressed her hand to his face, feeling her soft skin touching his. "I'm sorry I made you want to kill yourself."

She ripped her hand out of his grip, sputtering angrily. "I didn't, you…"

"Then why were you out in that rain, Tak? Looking at this base I know you're smart enough to seek shelter if you had wanted it. No, you meant to end your life out there. Me being here was a fluke accident."

Her eyes wouldn't meet his. He folded his hands in his lap. "You know… I used… to get called freak all the time. Back in training, I mean. It was because I was so short. It hurt so much, all I could think about was how much I'd rather end up dead than live through one more hour of mental agony… and yet, the days went on, and I didn't die."

He leaned back in his chair, lost in his own past. "I didn't understand it. Why me? Why wasn't I hit by a Voot, eaten by a slaughtering rat, anything? I didn't want to live. I didn't think I deserved to live. I mean, more deserving Irkens than me were dying like flies all around me. It was, after all, a war…"

"So I decided to poison myself. Dying in the streets, a tall shadow suddenly fell over me. I awakened in Spork's medical ward, being looked over by Spork himself. My suicide note had mentioned how I hated being called shortie, that I was through with it."

"Then, Spork came and sat down on the end of my bed in all his royal glory." Murderer Zim fought back tears, biting down hard on his lip. "Everyone said he was a bastard, but… no Irken was ever kinder to me. He said 'I always got made fun of for being so tall and thin. They called me gangly, skeleton boy, stick man, all kinds of hurtful names. Now, I'm the almighty tallest and they clean my bathrooms. Would I have gotten to see this day if I'd killed myself? No."

Murderer Zim paused, a slight smile spreading across his face. "Then Spork said 'Let me teach you how to walk on those who would hold you back.' Assassin training wasn't easy. No one thought I would make it because I was so short. But I adored Spork and his faith in me so much that I couldn't… I couldn't let him down. I busted my butt working as hard as I could for him, and then one day… I rose to being his most trusted assassin, and I laughed at those who had stepped on me. I was finally above them."

His face turned from one of quiet reflection to hard anger. He pounded his left fist into his right palm. "Then that INVADER Zim bastard showed up in my universe and tore everything apart. He killed Spork, the one Irken who made me feel special, the one Irken who made my life worth living. I swore I wouldn't rest until I got revenge…"

He collapsed back in the chair. "But what good is revenge? It won't bring Spork back and I'll still… I'll still be all alone. So, I'm sorry I made you feel like a freak. I don't want to make anyone hurt like I hurt…" 

In the silence that ensued, only the sound of crickets chirping could be heard. Murderer Zim had curled up in a ball, his head tucked between his legs. He was breathing hard, trying to hold back tears that wouldn't stop. His face was soaked with them. His ribs heaved as he gasped for air. Finally, Tak took the first initiative, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"You're right… I can't give up until I have my revenge on Invader Zim." For the first time since he'd met her, she was actually smiling. 

He brushed his fingers across her face. "You're almost as beautiful when you smile as when you're mad," he joked, laughing slightly.

Murderer Zim's eyes fluttered slightly in irritation. The sun had begun coming up and through the skylight, shining directly in his eyes. He grunted. "Computer, cover up that damn skylight." The computer responded silently, and a metal plate began sliding across the opening.

Good thing it was what humans called Saturday, for he was in no mood to drag his body to the Skool on that particular day. Too much had happened last night. He was almost wondering if he should send flowers to the kid whose arm he'd broken. He understood that humans did that for injured friends whom they wished to "get well fast." 

Tak stirred quietly in her sleep, muttering something slightly. As softly as he could, to avoid waking her, he reached up and stroked her antennae comfortingly. Her head was laid against his bare chest, her arms wrapped around his waist. "Gods, I've only known you for less than a week, and how I adore you…" he whispered, even though he knew she couldn't hear him. "From the tips of your antennae to the wire on your head to the soles of your feet, I want to make you happy. It's not about getting revenge on Invader Zim for me anymore… It's about helping you get over your past." 

He stared up at the ceiling. Him, worrying about someone else more than himself? A beautiful woman sleeping willingly at his side? Actually feeling content instead of empty? Maybe coming to this new dimension hadn't been such a bad thing for him.

Back at the Membrane household, Dib had finally returned home. The ugly beige wrist cast clashed with Dib's nearly all-black outfit. It wasn't that he particularly minded having a broken wrist in and of itself, but it certainly meant a delay in his alien-watching activities. That, and he wouldn't be able to do his alien role-play chats as quickly anymore.

He drew back his sheets, yawning in exhaustion. At the very least, he was grateful that the new Zim hadn't broken his glasses. Getting them replaced was a hassle, as only one particular brand of frames actually fit on his oversized head. Not that he would admit it was oversized, mind you.

Dib closed his curtain tight after duct-taping a piece of cardboard over the broken window. He'd have to swipe his dad's credit card again and order a replacement over the Internet. His dad had never noticed any of his exorbitant purchases before. Why should he start noticing now?

Falling into his bed and shutting his eyes, Dib slept soundly despite the sunlight streaming through his shattered window.

At Invader Zim's base, GIR pulled a jelly-smeared blanket over his Master. Invader Zim had fallen asleep at his computer again, drooling sticky Irken saliva all over the keys. GIR felt bad for Master. Master needed to get some rest, and not be so stressed out. Like GIR. GIR was never stressed out. Maybe Master needed to get "laid." GIR wasn't sure what that meant, but he heard it made one less stressed out.

After all, GIR had chocolate bubble gum, the happy little robot thought as he danced his way out of his sleeping Master's lab and back upstairs to watch the early morning run of the Sailor Scary Monkey cartoon. 

Above Zim, a blue light began to form and glow. At first it was only the size of a baseball, then it swelled to the size of a basketball, and continued to grow. It grew and expanded, radiating an otherworldly blue light. White sparks flew out of the edges of it.

One spark hit Zim on the antennae, causing them to twitch violently. The little Invader sat upright, surprised. "Who did that?" he snarled. Just happening to look up, he saw the source of the problem. His eyes tripled in size.

He didn't have time to move before a large object fell straight out of the hole and onto his head, knocking him out of his chair, and crushing him between it and the floor.

"MY SPINE!" Zim cried, clawing at the floor in an attempt to get out from beneath whatever it was.

"My butt!" whined the strange object. "What did I land on? Oh, ZIM!" the feminine voice cried, and suddenly the weight was removed from him. Zim looked up to see what had crushed him, and promptly discovered that he had to look way, way up.

"Violet? I have to be dreaming…" Zim muttered.

"Nope, it's me! Aren't you happy to see me?" she asked, pouting playfully.

"Not in my dimension. What's going on?"

Her eyes became hard and serious, shining with lavender flame. "Murderer Zim's prolonged presence in your dimension is wrecking havoc on his dimension. I have been armed and ordered to retrieve him at once." She held up two lasers as if to demonstrate the urgent nature of her mission. 

The Warning! Incoming message light lit up right as Violet was making her point. Before either Zim could peel himself off the floor or Violet could move, the main screen turned on. Violet, giggling, resisted the urge to make an All your Base reference.

"What is the meaning of calling us sixteen times in the middle of the night, Zim?" Tallest Purple asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily. 

Zim quickly stood up and saluted, standing as tall as he could next to Violet. "Yes, my tallests! I wanted to show you my new secret monitoring dev…"

"Who's the babe?" Tallest Red cut in, practically drooling on his hands at the sight of Violet. She blushed and giggled nervously.

"Not… not YOUR girlfriend, is she?" Purple stuttered.

"No! Zim needs no WOMAN!" Zim screeched, waving his gloved fist furiously in the air.

Violet bowed, letting her tantalizingly-long antennae brush the ground. It was no secret that Irken males found long antennae and thick eyelashes to be drool-inducing, and Violet was stacked in both areas. It didn't hurt that the blue and purple uniform she was wearing exposed most of her chest and legs, whereas the uniforms Red and Purple were used to seeing exposed the mid drift at the very most. 

"Torture Master Violet at your service, my tallests."

"Torture master? There haven't been any torture masters since the early years of Spork's reign, have there?" Tallest Purple whispered to Tallest Red.

Violet opened her mouth to explain how she'd come from another dimension, but Tallest Red cut her off. "So… are you free for dinner tonight? I mean, you look really tall and everything…"

"No fair!" Purple hissed. "I was going to ask her!"

Violet laughed. "I don't think that would be a good idea, your tallests."

"Oh? And why not?" Red asked, stubbornly crossing his arms over his chest.

"With all due respect, your tallest… it wouldn't work out because I'm actually a man."

There was a long, VERY awkward silence. "O-kay then," Red stammered while Purple sat in the background, looking too stunned to move. "Zim, don't call us again unless you have a good reason." The screen then went blank, leaving Red and Purple to stand around like idiots in stunned silence before looking at one another and crying "EEEEEEEW!" in unison.

"Works like a charm to get rid of creepy guys," Violet muttered, sticking the lasers back in their holsters. "You will assist me in capturing Murderer Zim?"

"ZIM helps no one do anything!" Zim shouted. "The tallests were calling to see my new invention and you RUINED IT!" he screamed, his face turning colors.

Violet staggered backwards, alarmed by Zim's reaction. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"GET OUT OF MY BASE!" Zim shouted, throwing a beaker at her head. Violet managed to dodge it, diving for safe place behind a block of equipment.

"Don't you think you're taking this a little badly?" she asked, her voice alarmed. "I didn't mean to get in your way!"

"Out! Out! Out!" Zim cried, extending his spider legs and chasing the nimble girl up the stairs to the top floor of his base.

"But if I leave your base without a disguise, won't humans see me and blow your cover," she shouted, dodging flying pieces of glassware. 

Zim froze in place, twitching in anger. "Curse you!" he shouted, pointing a gloved finger at her and retracting his mechanical spider legs. "Fine, fine, we'll get you a disguise. THEN you get out of my base, understand."

Violet smiled, stooped down, and ruffled Zim's antennae. "You're so cuuuute when you're mad," she cooed. Then, she ran as quickly as she could down the stairs, Zim in hot pursuit while shouting about how he was deadly and smart, not cute.


	6. Bloodthirsty Squirrels

[Author's note: As for the time setting, I put this somewhere near the end of Season II, when Tak would have returned and Skoodge would be living in Zim's basement. Had Season II been made, that is. *Sighs* Anyway, thought I'd explain because that's going to become relevant to this chapter.]

Zim marched, stiff-legged, down the stairs of his base. Violet followed, glancing all around. She looked innocent, but she was mentally compiling how everything she saw could be turned into a weapon if need be. Such was the world she'd been raised in.

Zim threw down a pile of blankets. "You can sleep on Skoodge's air mattress. He's away on a trip anyway."

Violet peered in the room, barely bigger than a closet. "How am I supposed to fit in there?" she asked, whimpering a bit. She was rather tall and rather long, if not thickly built.

"Oh, you're talented," Zim chuckled. "You'll figure something out."

Violet made a rather rude Irken gesture behind his head as he strutted off, frowning to herself. "That guy's completely oblivious to everything," Violet muttered. "Can I possibly have the right base?" she pulled out her electronic scan pad and flipped through her directions. "No… I have the right coordinates… and that's certainly not Murderer Zim or I'd be dead right now… that has to be Invader Zim…" Violet frowned and put away her electronic pad. Zim wasn't like she remembered him at all.

On Monday at Skool, Murderer Zim put his heinous plan into action. "It occurs to me," Justin purred, sucking from a juice box as he leaned up against the side of the brick building. "That the school mixer is coming up. Pft, what a lame event."

All the other popular kids, standing in a half circle around him and looked bored as well as stuffed with free meat products, nodded weakly. "So, I've decided to throw my own party, at my cousin's mansion. We can play music that doesn't SUCK."

That gathered nods of approval. "However, I want it to be more than just a boring mixer! I want style! I want substance!" Justin threw down the juice box and struck a pose. "I want… science fiction!"

The popular group stared at him, uncomprehending what they'd just heard. "Don't you get it? Theme parties are what's cool in Los Angeles, New York, all the places that are SO much cooler than here. Or do you guys want to just have another lame mixer with the Chicken Dance, because in that case you might as well go to the school dance. You're not welcome at my party, which is where anyone who isn't a," he cast a disapproving gaze over at Zim, who was sitting alone. Dib and his broken fist were no where in sight. "Freak," Justin finished.

The group shuddered. Justin had given the ultimate in elementary threats: loss of coolness. "So what do we do at a theme party?"

Justin smiled over his glasses. "Go all out! You guys bring costumes, I'll get my dad to have a couple of his Hollywood friends to loan us space ships on strings, servants in robot costumes, the whole works." He smiled. "Of course, there'll be a prize for best costume… a chance to go see the Barnstorming Boys backstage, with me as your guest."

That, of course, was far more appealing to the girls than the boys. But even the popular boys wouldn't dare say they had a different taste in music than anyone else. To do so would be equivalent to sitting with Zim at lunch.

Justin looked up, catching Tak's eyes for just a moment as she crossed the playground. That morning, when he'd awakened, his arms had been empty, and she'd been behaving as if last night had never even happened. He sighed deeply, trying not to feel the wounds tearing at his heart. Why did women have to be so… difficult? She'd slapped him hard enough to leave a bruise that morning, and all he'd tried to do was get a peep at her in the dust shower. Was that so wrong? She should have been honored! It meant he liked her!

"See you guys tomorrow!" Murderer Zim called. Justin had made up a clever excuse about his mom making him come home right away to help her with some things. Tak walked ahead of him, her head down and her purple-black hair hanging in front of her face.

Frustrated, Murderer Zim sped up and matched pace with her. "Why are you avoiding me?" he hissed. "What's your problem?"

She looked up at him, her eyes hard, and then her arms dropped to her sides. "I shouldn't have come to Skool. I'm not… fully healed yet," she said, gripping her side for emphasis.

He put an arm around her shoulders. "Don't keep fighting, you stubborn girl! Your safety is more important than your pride. Here, hold still."

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

He hefted her up in his arms, shifting and jiggling her around until he had a good grip on her. "I'm NOT going to let you walk home."

"Put me down!" she shouted, thrashing around like a fish out of water. "I can walk!"

"You're sweating like a pig and you can barely breathe. I'm carrying you."

"Pigs don't sweat. What about your army?" she sneered. "What if they see you together with the freak."

Murderer Zim paused. "Forget them. I don't need an army when I have you."

Her eyes were blank for a moment, then filled with rage like he'd never seen before. He didn't have time to protect himself before she slammed a fist straight into his left eye. He dropped her, howling in pain and holding his face.

Tak grabbed her books up out of the dirt. "I can walk myself home!" she snapped, storming off.

Murderer Zim sat in the dirt. "What did I say?" he whined out loud.

He was still pondering that when the doorbell rang. "Eh?" Murderer Zim muttered, strolling over to the door and peeping out of it. The small, pale boy from school stood outside the door. He looked both awkward and nervous at the same time. Switching on his costume, Murderer Zim peeped out the door. "What do you want?"

"No butler?" Dib asked sarcastically. 

"No. No butler. Answer the question."

Dib held up a small, unlabelled CD. "I have more than one Zim bloopers reel," he said quietly.

Back at Zim's base, Violet was fascinated with the blender. Before it had broken down she'd blended up two smoothies, three bananas, ice cream, a goldfish, and two unfortunate frogs. 

After getting bored with that, she'd made some "minor" adjustments to the robot parents. The mother now spoke exclusively Spanish swear words. Violet wondered if perhaps this were the reason why she'd been assigned to Spork's torture chambers. When left alone, she made things torturous on everyone else. Spork had discovered that on the first day he'd had her around. Left alone in his bedroom while he attended to royal business, she'd made a quilt out of his underwear.

She noticed the little green dog thing kept coming and going. Maybe if she followed him, she'd see something interesting…

At the same time, Skoodge had just arrived home. There wasn't room in Zim's attic for his ship, so he'd had to park in the tops of a fake tree. He wouldn't have honestly minded, if not for the bloodthirsty squirrels that always seemed intent on biting his ankles. 

Two of them were still attached to him as he did a little dance, trying desperately to free himself from them in the backyard. Violet, forgetting her complete lack of disguise, snatched up a heavy frying pan and ran into the yard.

"Back, you ankle biting beasts!" she shouted, swinging wildly. One of her swings missed; the second swing hit a squirrel directly in the head. Watching the dazed squirrel retreat, Violet pumped her fist in the air. "Yeah, run in retreat you fat-tailed rat pests!" She looked down at Skoodge, who was rubbing his aching legs.

"You okay?" she asked, helping him to his feet.

His eyes filled up with tears. "No… no one's ever… helped _me_ before."

Violet shrugged and swung the bloodied pan over her shoulder. "No problem. I wasn't just going to stand by and watch those mammals chew your legs off!"

"Thank you… thank you! My name's Skoodge."

"Violet," she informed him shortly as she returned into the house. "Zim has me sleeping in your bed, but I'm actually glad you came back. I don't fit in your bed."

He looked at her long legs. "I'd imagine not," he mused. "I'm sure Zim can find a better place to put you if he really tried!"

Violet smiled. "You really think so? Thanks." She paused. "So, when are you going to ask me out?"

Skoodge sputtered on the soda he'd just opened, spitting half of it down his shirt. Not that his shirt wasn't already covered in small stains and grease. "Ex… excuse me?"

"Guys always ask me out when they see me. Never fails. Stupid antennae, stupid eyelashes!" she sighed.

Skoodge paused, biting his lip. "I wasn't going to ask you out… you'd never go out with someone as short as me."

"Now, if I did that, I'd be just as shallow as the guys who only want to go out with me because I'm tall, and I'd like to think I'm better than that," Violet huffed, her hands on her hips.

"So… do you want me to ask you out or not?" Skoodge asked, his stubby round eyes flickering with confusion.

There was a long, overly thick pause. "No," Violet finally said.

Skoodge started to turn away. Just as he thought. No matter what she said, he was just too short and too fat for…

"I don't want you to ask me out because I'm asking you out." She took his fat little hand in her thin one, kneeling down to him. "Call it my way of apologizing for judging you the way I hate to be judged."

The only thing that prevented Skoodge from turning to a puddle of goo in Violet's luscious arms was Zim arriving home right then, slamming the door hard enough to bring about a long string of Spanish swearing out of the robot mother.

"More popcorn, Dib?"

"Are you kidding? I'm still stuffed with that pizza!" 

Murderer Zim laughed. "I want to see the one, the one where he's teaching GIR how to be a real dog and GIR buries him again!" Murderer Zim choked, his face wet with happy tears.

Dib, holding his rib cage, smiled. "Let me… let me start breathing again…"

"Oh man! You could sell these tapes and make a MINT, man, a MINT!"

"But no one ever believes it's a real alien…"

"I'm not talking about on EARTH! Do you know how much these would go for on Irk?"

"He's right, you know," Tak added quietly. She'd been keeping her distance from them, tightening wires on MiMi to install the new memory disk. Even Dib could sense the tension between the two of them, but he didn't know the cause of it. He wasn't sure he could ask what the cause was without getting smacked around again.

Her dark purple eyes met Dib's as she looked up. "You know, our tallests didn't order Zim to destroy your planet. They sent him here to get rid of him."

The hard edge never left Dib's eyes. "But you destroy other planets. You make prisoners out of former friends."

"So does your country, Dib, and if your people were a planet I'm sure they would too." With that, Tak went back to work on MiMi. 

"Don't mind her… she's mad and won't tell me why," Murderer Zim whispered. "I thought it was because I took over her base without asking, but I offered to give it back and she just screamed at me and went back to tinkering on MiMi."

"Oh," Dib said, for lack of knowing what else to say. 

"She's telling the truth, though. In fact, I bet our leaders would throw you a parade back on Irk if you bumped off Invader Zim. They can't stand his guts."

"I'd be a hero?" Dib asked, visions of grandeur dancing in his head.

"They certainly would, but you've got to consider… they've been trying to kill Zim and failing at it for years. It's not an easy task. But if the three of us work together," he said, glancing at Tak, "Then…"

"Anything is possible," Dib finished. To heck with the parade, think of the validation he'd feel upon delivering Zim's alien corpse to the non-believers at Nasaplace and in the Swollen Eyeballs. Think of the looks on their faces as he presented the alien technology he'd ask the alien leaders for as a reward. The fame, the glory… and most of all, everyone would have to say that he was RIGHT.

And that was worth more than all the gold in the world to young Dib. 


	7. It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a Zim?

The two weeks to Murderer Zim's party spun down more quickly than one would have anticipated. On Invader Zim's end, Violet and Skoodge were training to invade Murderer Zim's party, thus capturing him and letting Violet get back to the home dimension with him without incident. Zim ignored them, so Violet far preferred to put her faith in the mission in Skoodge's fat but capable hands.

On Murderer Zim's end, Dib had briefed Murderer Zim to many of the weaknesses of Irkens he'd discovered, and Murderer Zim had given him "selected" bits of information from his end. Their final decision: trick Invader Zim into coming to the party, and then spring their ingenious trap.

Meanwhile, Tak was being more than confusing. Sometimes she was helpful, other times she sulked miserably. Some nights she willingly cuddled up in Murderer Zim's arms as the sun set, other nights she slept in the garage rather than sharing the base with him.

"I think… having someone be nice to her is frying her circuits," Murderer Zim mused as he and Dib put the nuts and bolts on the last of their "catch Zim" trap. 

"Maybe," Dib mused. It would certainly mess with his head if Gaz actually did suddenly start being nice to him. Looking back on it, that should have been the first thing to tip him off that something was wrong in Zim's holographic simulation. If Gaz had promised to be nice to him in reality, his head would have exploded and splattered brain meats all over the walls and his father's impeccable white coat.

"She set up some weird experiment she won't stop poking at. As far as I can tell it's just a big box and sheets, but she won't let me touch it. I wonder what the hell she's up to…"

Dib wasn't really listening. "I wouldn't know." After a moment, he looked up and grinned. "After all, she's _your_ girlfriend!" In response, Murderer Zim threw a sponge at Dib's head.

"ZIM needs no girlfriend!" Murderer Zim mock-fumed, returning on working to their plans. "There, almost ready… this is going to be great."

"Are you sure it will work?" Dib asked.

Murderer Zim grinned. "Of course, my dear little human… who knows Zim better than Zim?"

Dib couldn't argue with that. Slinging his pack of tools over his back, he nodded at Murderer Zim. "See you at the party?"

"That's why I made it open invitation. I won't actually be able to talk to you, of course… but you know what to do."

Dib nodded in agreement and left. Murderer Zim set down the garage door and wandered back inside. Maybe Tak would be in a better mood after she saw the luscious dinner he was preparing for the two of them… she'd been snippy lately and he wanted to get back in her good graces.

"Tak? Taaaaak?" he called, meandering through the base. "I know you're mad at me, but I made food, Tak. You like food. You need food."

He found her in her den, two long silver needles in her hands. They were clicking together, yarn flying. "What chu doing?" Murderer Zim asked.

Tak paused, looked up at him through violet eyes, and set down the needles. She picked up a green and blue knitted shirt off the table. Murderer Zim's face went pale. It was a very tiny shirt. Just the right size shirt to fit a smeet… He was about to pass out when Tak leaned over and put the shirt on MiMi. "Fits good, don't you think?" she asked.

The color returned to Murderer Zim's face in an instant. "Don't SCARE me like that!" he cried.

She looked at him blankly, then sighed. "So is dinner ready or not?" 

"Yeah, come eat before it gets cold."

Tak stood up, brushing little bits of yarn off and packing up her new knitting project, which was currently a pink blob. She gave a glance over towards her lab and sighed, looking straight at the new experiment. "Nothing yet," she sighed.

"Nothing yet? What are you trying to get?"

She patted him on the head. "You'll know when you see it." With that, she strutted out of the room.

Murderer Zim stomped one booted foot on the carpet. "WOMEN!" he cried, shaking his fists at the Gods. "Couldn't you have come up with a less complicated operating system for them?"

Finally, the night of the big party arrived. Guests milled about, looking bored. After all, Justin's party or not, they were all "too cool" to be there. There was an open dance floor, but no one was dancing. That might entail touching a member of the opposite sex and starting those embarrassing love rumors.

Justin wandered around, keeping his distance from Tak. She was wandering around aimlessly as well, but of course Justin couldn't be seen with her. His heart ached slightly. He wanted to ask her to dance, but that meant blowing everything he'd built up with so much painstaking labor. After all, two weeks worth of building popularity could crash in just a moment of being seen with the wrong person or doing the wrong thing.

Zim hovered against a wall, standing next to Skoodge. Having never seen him before, Murderer Zim didn't know Skoodge was also an Irken. He swiftly cut across the floor, head aloof.

"So you decided to show yourself, even if you are a freak?" Murderer Zim taunted, his voice velvety. Invader Zim's jaw dropped to his knees. 

"You would dare go out in public… without a disguise?"

Murderer Zim laughed and flipped his antennae back. "Enjoying my costume party, huh? Everyone thinks my costume is simply daaaarling."

Invader Zim managed to get his mouth back to its usual shape and size. "I'll figure out what you're up to…" he threatened.

"Ha, you'll never find my secret weapon before I use it on you." With those words of caution, he faded into the crowd. 

Invader Zim narrowed his contact-covered eyes. That was laughable. He'd find this amazing "secret weapon," and then it would be Murderer Zim who would be in pain while Invader Zim laughed.

Invader Zim wandered through the party, overly cool kids parting from his path like Moses and the whatever color it was sea. Black sea? Red sea? Blue Danube? Oh well, it's not important. The point was, no one who wanted to keep their social status would be seen near him.

A giant orange sign was posted on the basement door. "No admittance!" It said. Below, written in tinier letters, were the words "No secret weapon down here." Invader Zim grinned.

"This is but child's play for my genius!" Zim smirked, reaching for the door.

"Looks like a trap to me," a female voice interjected. Invader Zim jumped a mile in the air, whipping wildly around.

"VIOLET! Where is your disguise?"

"It got itchy, and everyone thinks my costume rules," she answered, shoving cake in her mouth.

"Aren't you supposed to be capturing my arch nemesis, not demolishing the cake."

Violet took another long sip from her cup of punch. "Let me live a little! I hardly ever got out of the dingy dungeon when Spork was in control. I can catch Murderer Zim anytime. For now, Violet wants to party! But yeah… I think you're walking into a trap if you do down there."

"Pah! My brain meats are infinitely superior to yours, and I say I'm not."

Violet rolled her eyes. "If you insist on getting into trouble, I'll probably be the one saving your butt. However, I know I'm not going to change your mind, so go right ahead." With that she waved him off and disappeared into the party, trying to blend in like she was one of the hired staff. Needless to say, most of the young boys at the party either stared at her body or cowered in fear. 

Invader Zim slipped through the door. Dark stairs opened like a hungry mouth before him, ready to devour him. If Invader Zim had any fear, he quickly swallowed it as he descended into the darkness.

Sitting alone in the basement was a large table, covered in a white sheet. A small sign had been attached to it. Messy handwriting proclaimed "No secret weapon here!"

"Those fools cannot fool ZIM!" Invader Zim declared, reaching out and grabbing the edges of the sheet. He thrust the sheet to the floor, leaping up on the table to claim his anticipated prize.

A metal claw shot out of the middle of the table, gripping the short green alien by the throat. Invader Zim let out a desperate cry of "Urk" as the machine lifted him high into the air, flinging him about like a dog playing with a chew rope. Invader Zim's anguished screams were drowned out by the thudding boom, boom, boom of the loud techno and pop music blaring from above.

Invader Zim's tiny body was thrown against the concrete walls several times, each time sending a resounding "crack" sound through the basement and a hot electric shock up his spine and into his brain, which was screaming in terror.

The machine then stopped, letting Invader Zim hang limply from it. Overhead, a skyway had opened. The mechanical arm drew slowly back, and then flung Invader Zim forward. 

He shot a good fifty feet straight up into the air, the sound of the music still muffling his loud shouts of protest. But what goes up must come down, as physics dictate, and even a tiny Irken villain can't defeat the laws of physics.

Zim's body began plummeting like a rock. Zim was not, however, being launched simply up into the sky to fall back down. No, he could survive that.

As Invader Zim fell from the sky, he realized in slow horror that he was falling straight for the middle of a large swimming pool. The glistening blue-green water lapped at the concrete sides of the pool like a hungry animal, shining white fangs open and ready to accept the little Invader's body.

"If we simply push him into the pool, the paste will protect him," Dib had mused as he and Murderer Zim had debated how to be rid of Invader Zim once and for all.

Murderer Zim had paused a moment, then smiled. "What if we make sure he hits the middle of the pool hard enough to go straight to the bottom?"

Invader Zim shut his eyes tight as he plummeted headfirst towards a watery doom.

.


	8. A Shot in the Dark

Skoodge's short antennae twitched slightly. He thought he heard Invader Zim screaming. No… no… he DID hear Invader Zim screaming. Skoodge looked straight up, dropping his cup of mixed nuts at his feet. Invader Zim was in the sky, shooting straight up towards the stars. Skoodge looked out to where Zim would land, his face turning from green to white. Zim would come down in the middle of the pool!

Without even the slightest pause to think, Skoodge ripped a Delicious Weenies sausage rope off the table. Hooking the end into a quick lasso, he flung it outward and through the air. He managed to snag Invader Zim's wrist, yanking back hard on the lasso.

Invader Zim flew sideways through the air, landing hard on the concrete lip of the pool. He rolled over, his eyes out of focus from the pain of the impact. He'd missed the water by all of a half foot… too close of a call, as far as the little Invader was concerned.

It was only then that he realized the sausages were fusing to his skin. Screaming like a howler monkey, Zim ran in circles while trailing meat. However, this is Zim we're talking about. The other kids were so used to Zim's strange behavior that they didn't even bat an eyelid.

Dib crushed his container of punch and ice in his good hand, his eyes narrowing in dark anger. He'd pushed through the crowd, endured the noise, and tolerated being laughed at by the other kids just to have a front row seat to Invader Zim's doom. To be cheated out of it…

Dib rose to his feet. He wasn't going to take this lying down. He stormed in the direction he'd last seen Invader Zim. He wasn't sure exactly what he was going to do, but he was going to do… something.

Murderer Zim, the same thought on his mind, was storming towards Invader Zim at that exact same moment. He'd lost to Invader Zim once due to dumb luck. He wasn't going to lose again.

Violet was gulping down strawberry punch when a kid ran up to another child standing next to her. "Dude, do you see what's going down at the pool? Justin and that freaky Dib kid were kicking the SH*T out of that weird Zim guy, and then this fat kid got in it, and now there's like twenty people fighting!"

Violet moaned and slapped her forehead. If that kept up, someone was bound to realize the alien costumes… weren't really costumes. Then they were REALLY in for a fun time.

"It's up to Vi to save the day… again," she sighed. "I really hated bailing Spork's butt out, and I like bailing Zim's butt out half as much. Now, what am I going to do?"

Violet looked at the stairs leading to the upper level of the house, blocked off from the partygoers by police tape. She'd just seen the short female Irken go up there. She'd also seen the longing way Murderer Zim had been looking at her. Violet's dark eyes lit up. That was it! That was the answer!

Violet wound her way up the stairs, moving slowly. Her gun was drawn and set to stun, not wanting to take any chances with Tak fighting back. The carpeted stairs creaked gently beneath her slender form, enough to be heard but probably not enough to give away her surprise attack.

Violet peered around a corner, her stun gun held in front of her body. No sign of Tak yet, so she silently slipped onto the landing. Her antennae perked up at the sound of a radio playing quietly.

Violet followed the sound of the radio through the silent halls. With the low lightning and the complete lack of other living souls in the area, it strongly reminded Violet of walking through a horror movie. A bad horror movie at that, she thought as she rounded the corner.

She found herself facing Tak with an outstretched laser in her hand. Violet, her own gun outstretched, refused to move. "Drop your weapon," Tak ordered in her thick accent.

"Like hell I'm doing that," Violet snapped.

"I'd think twice before trying anything. You are in my base," Tak reminded her, her grip on her weapon never wavering. 

Violet couldn't argue with that, but she didn't release her hold. "If I'm going to go down, I prefer to go down fighting," she hissed.

Tak frowned, narrowing one eye. "Who are you? Did the tallests send you?"

Violet didn't move so much as a muscle. "Yeah, you might say that. But not your tallests, and you're not my target. Murderer Zim is."

Flames lit in the girl's young eyes. "You can't have him!" she screamed, firing at Violet. 

Violet jumped backwards, shooting as she did. Tak's blast caught her in the shoulder right as her stun beam struck Tak in the chest. Both females fell backwards, their feet no longer connected to the ground. 

Violet hit the wall, a spray of blood behind her. A neat hole had been burned right through her shoulder. She gripped it in pain, wincing violently. "You'll pay for that, bitch!" she hissed, getting to her feet.

Paralyzed for the blast, Tak's chest heaved with fear as Violet strode back into the room, holding her injured shoulder. She upped the setting on her weapon and put it straight against Tak's head.

The girl couldn't even so much as shut her eyes. Violet's arm twitched as she pulled back on the trigger slightly… and then let go. She sighed, her chest heaving. "I'm not a killer. However…" She turned the laser and shot Tak squarely in the shoulder. 

Tears dripped from the girl's violet eyes but she couldn't move to do anything about it. "Fair is fair," Violet smirked, rubbing her own wound. The hole was beginning to close up on its own. "Damn, I hope you lose mobility in that arm. That hurt." 

With that, Violet seized Tak violently by the antennae and dragged her back towards the stairs.

Murderer Zim was punching Invader Zim in the organs while Dib held his antennae so that he couldn't get away. Their fight was mostly removed from the other fighting going on, as the rest of it was simply people fighting for lack of anything better to do but fight.

"And stay away from my cousin!" Murderer Zim threw in, just in case anyone was watching and wondering why Invader Zim was getting his butt handed to him by the two of them.

"What about your _cousin?_" Violet asked coldly. Murderer Zim's head shot up. His arms dropped to his sides. Dib, turning around to see what Murderer Zim was staring at, let go of Invader Zim's antennae. Invader Zim collapsed in a moaning heap to the ground.

Violet had her arm around Tak's neck. Her breathing was a ragged. Murderer Zim's eyes flashed lightning when he saw the hole in her arm. "What did you do to her?" Murderer Zim screeched.

"The same thing she did to me. Come with me quietly and I won't have to kill her."

Murderer Zim's arms formed fists at his sides. If he didn't, Tak would die. If he did, he'd never see her again. He would lose either way. Then, remembering MiMi's sweater, a light bulb lit over his head.

"What about the smeet?" he asked, false fear showing in his eyes.

"Smeet?" Violet asked. The whole situation seemed to have suddenly turned on its ear. Enemy or not, and bait or not, she couldn't kill an unborn smeet. No matter how bad the mother was, no matter how many crimes she had committed, the smeet had had no say in any of it. And, as much as absolutely possible, would do anything she could to never kill an innocent.

"The one inside her," Murderer Zim lied smoothly, hoping no one was listening. Over the din of the fighting, he didn't think anyone possibly could be.

"Come willingly with me and I won't have to do anything to it," Violet insisted, but her lower lip had started trembling. Murderer Zim knew he had her. After all, he knew her better than anyone else in the dimension they were currently in.

He didn't actually have to do anything, as MiMi attacked Violet's neck. Violet screamed, grabbing at the robot as Tak fell from her arms. In one swift move, Murderer Zim caught her. Hugging her to his chest, he leaped backwards.

He looked around. "There are too many humans to fight here and now, but this isn't the end… Vivy."

Violet, having just managed to dislodge MiMi after suffering great harm to her neck, glared at him. "No one's allowed to call me that," she snapped.

Murderer Zim smiled like the cat that ate the canary. "We'll settle this at a later date." With that, he stepped backwards and faded through the holographic wall of the house, vanishing from sight with a stunned Tak cradled in his arms.

With that, the police arrived at the party to break up the fight. 

Violet insisted on walking herself home, despite the still closing hole in her shoulder and the wounds MiMi had inflicted on her neck and back still oozing plasma. Every ten feet it seemed Skoodge asked if he could help her, until finally she collapsed into his arms, weeping. It wasn't that she was crying from the pain; she was crying from having to admit that maybe she couldn't always be completely independent.

After Invader Zim had dragged himself down to his lab to being concocting his next brilliant plan to strike against Murderer Zim, and probably to bandage his own wounded pride, Skoodge rested Violet on the couch.

She screamed in irritation when he applied Bactine to her broken flesh. "If you hadn't gotten in a fight, I wouldn't have to make it sting," Skoodge scolded, having to stand on his tip toes to reach her neck even though she was sitting down.

Violet, a bit woozy from her injuries and too much fruity punch, smiled. "You know, in my dimension, it's YOU who has Tak's heart. Not Zim."

Skoodge blushed a deep shade of emerald. "I can't even begin to imagine how different your dimension must be from ours."

"It's not… all that different. Not anymore," she answered, watching him wrap her wounds in beige bandages. "Thank you."

Skoodge grinned stupidly. "No problem."

"You know," she said, flexing her injured arm. "Most Irken males would kill for a chance to touch me, which is exactly why I won't let them. You should be glad I'm giving it to you for free."

"You were hurt. Even if you'd tried to stop me I wouldn't have let you."

Violet's eyes started drifting shut. "I know. That's why I," she paused to yawn. "Let you."

Skoodge pulled a blanket over her body. Reaching out, he seemed to be intent on touching her antennae, maybe stroking them lightly to comfort her. Then remembering what she said, he drew his arm back and quietly left the room.

Alone in the dark, Violet let out a heavy sigh. She'd wanted him to stroke her antennae; she really needed the comforting after a failed mission. She wasn't used to failing missions, and it hurt more than she had ever imagined. "Vi, why do you have to be so damned stubborn?" she asked no one but the softly chirping crickets.

Murderer Zim tucked Tak into her bed, pulling the covers up over the two of them. She was still in pretty bad shape, shaken from the experience earlier. As a result, she hadn't wanted to sleep alone.

He drew his fingers under her chin. "Don't worry, my angel… I won't let anything happen to you. I couldn't let anything happen to you. I'd die first."

"I thought I was going to die," she said, letting him take her arm and wrap it around his body. "And when she shot my arm… it hurt…"

"Shush. I know."

"Sorry I've been such a monster to you lately. You really came through in the end."

He chucked. "Actually, MiMi did, but I forgive you. It's because you're not used to someone being kind to you. Your brain rebelled at the idea. Tak? Tak?"

The poor, exhausted girl was already sound asleep. Murderer Zim turned off the lights and lay down. His brain was turning over about a hundred thoughts of exactly what he'd do to Invader Zim… as well as that obnoxious Violet. He'd wanted to make her scream as she died for years, but Spork had been fond of her. At least one good thing had come of Spork's death, then.

His head filled with plots to rid himself of Invader Zim once and for all, Murderer Zim didn't sleep at all that night. 

___

Before anyone complains about the use of the words bitch or shit, know that bitch was used in the movie Casper and that was only rated PG. 


	9. There's Something About Tak

Violet held a role of tape in her mouth as she attempted to wrap the end around her wounded shoulder without smashing herself with the black-handled metal scissors she balancing on her knee. Wandering into the room, Skoodge looked up at her and quietly commented, "You know, you could just ask someone to help you…"

"I'm taking care of myself, thank you very much," Violet muttered through the tape in her mouth. Of course, the tape made it come out as "Ith tahking care oth mythelth, thlank you vere muth." 

Skoodge sighed and shook his small head as Violet dropped tape, scissors, and everything else she'd been balancing. She let out a moan of exasperation, slapping her fist against her forehead. "Stupid, stupid, stupid!" she shouted.

Quietly, Skoodge picked up the scissors and offered them to her sheepishly. She snatched them out of his hands. "Look, just don't start. No matter how nice or kind you are, no matter how non-judgmental of our height difference I'm capable of being, it wouldn't work! I have to return to my own dimension as soon as I capture Murderer Zim, and I can't take you back with me. Apparently having two of someone in one dimension screws things up royally…" she sighed. "So please, don't get attached to me! You'll just get hurt."

Skoodge frowned. "I'm not trying to help you because I'm attached to you! You just… you needed help."

Caught off-guard, Violet slowly kneeled down, letting Skoodge attend to the partially healed wound from where Tak's weapon had struck. "There, is that so hard?" he asked as Violet winced from the sting of the antiseptic. 

"Actually, yes… it is… it means having to admit that I screwed up, and that isn't easy on the pride."

Skoodge set the bottle of medicine down. "I don't think you screwed up. Not everyone can be perfect all the time. Some of us can't even be perfect for a few minutes," he sighed, his voice far removed from the actual situation.

Violet sighed, then laughed a little. "You don't get it, do you? Don't make me feel like I'm starting to like you. I'll have to go back to my own dimension soon, and even a brief fling wouldn't work."

Stunned by her sudden outright statement, Skoodge laughed nervously. "What makes you say that?"

"I hate to sound like… well, like the rest of Irken society, but it wouldn't work! I mean, look at the difference in our bodies. You probably couldn't even reach my boobs."

After a moment of staring, they both broke into hysterical laughter. They laughed until their ribs ached, their lungs threatened to burst, and hot tears streaked down their cheeks.

Murderer Zim felt a hand tracing down his cheek, tracing the contours of his body. His eyes slid slowly open as he smiled down upon a tired-looking Tak, her eyes half shut. "Honey? It's four in the morning, what are you doing up?" he asked, sitting up in the bed that they were sharing. It wasn't designed for two Irkens and was somewhat uncomfortable to have them both in it, but he wouldn't have left her side for the world.

"Why did you tell Violet I was… expecting?"

Murderer Zim laughed. It had been a good little lie, hadn't it? "To get her to let you go. Violet would never, ever, EVER hurt a smeet. I know her well enough to know that. She acts like a tough bitch, but she's soft as ice cream underneath." Murderer Zim paused to chew on his lip. "That's why I never liked her, you know? She puts up a damn front."

"I put up a front, too…" Tak commented softly.

Murderer Zim paused, then sighed. "Open mouth, insert foot. I've yet to meet someone who doesn't put up a front. But Violet's… Violet's just ticked me off."

"You were jealous that she was close to Spork."

Murderer Zim put his arm around Tak gently. "You see right through me, babe… now, did you wake me up just to ask me why I told Violet you were expecting?"

"Mmmm…" she muttered.

"Tak?" Murderer Zim asked, concerned. "Are you okay? Do you need something?" 

"No… just… tired…" she sighed. 

"No, you sound sick…" Murderer Zim put a hand on her forehead. "No fever…"

She jerked back under his touch. "The wound… still hurts."

Murderer Zim frowned. "Let me see it." With those four words, he peeled back the fabric covering her skin. She jerked again, her eyelids shut tight to try and halt the salty tears escaping her eyes. Murderer Zim whistled, and not in a good way.

"I think it's infected…" he muttered, crawling naked out of the bed. "I'm going to get a first aid kit." Tak tried to protest angrily that she was fine, but Murderer Zim was already out the door and padding, au natural, across the base. MiMi, on constant alert, glared up at him as he walked by her, but he paid her no mind. Robot chicks weren't cute.

Passing by a reflective surface in the dark, he was a bit surprised by his appearance. The skin on his head was a considerably darker shade than the rest of the body. He almost looked sickly pale to himself in the mirror, and that wasn't sexy at all.

Whirling around, he admired his fine, hard ass. He didn't blame falling for him and his desirable backside. He would have fallen for himself, too, if he were female. At the moment, however, Tak's wound was a bit more pressing than admiring his short physique, so he continued on his way.

It's too bad more women can't enjoy my rear, he thought as he got the first aid kit down from the medicine cabinet. But, I really wouldn't want to make all the other guys in the Empire jealous. I mean, imagine what the tallests would do if they saw that I had a finer ass then them, Murderer Zim mused to himself as he thudded back across the darkened base.

Wait… imagine what the tallests WOULD do if they saw his ass. Not in a yaoi boy-love hentai way, but what if… no, no, the idea was too tempting. He couldn't… he wouldn't… he shouldn't… no, he could… he would… he should… yes… yes… that was it! The ultimate plan! Both his intelligent and carefully laid plans had failed against the stupidity of Murderer Zim… so why shouldn't an utterly stupid, brainless, horrid plan work?

"Tak, I've got the first aid kit! Tak… Tak?" The bed was empty. Murderer Zim groaned. "Don't tell me that girl is trying to get herself KILLED again!" he groaned as he rushed across the base, hot on her trail. "Tak? TAAAK! Where are you? Tak?"

He finally located her in her base, wrapped in the sheets from the bed and pacing around nervously, occasionally pausing to look into her empty experiment box. Murderer Zim raised an eye, confused as to what was going on. "Tak, I think you need to get back to bed… You're behaving very oddly."

"Oddly?"

"You scream at me if I even suggest you wear short sleeves. Wandering around the base in a toga isn't like you."

She sat down, tiredly checking a watch. "Boy, you males are dense, aren't you?"

He looked at the experiment box, which seemed to have occupied all her attention during the time they'd been there. Even when she'd been talking to him, she'd been looking at the box.

"Something going to happen in that box?" he asked.

"Oh, something's going to happen, all right…"

Violet woke up with a start. "I've been had!" she shouted.

Skoodge, who had fallen asleep in a semi-watchful manner, rushed into the room. "Are you all right? What's wrong? Your wound?"

"NO!" she cried, pounding the pillow with her fist. "Of course Tak isn't really pregnant! I made the mistake of once thinking I could confide in him and told him that I couldn't stand killing innocent smeets. Less than two days later Spork presented me with a nest and asked me to prove my loyalty by cracking all the eggs open and letting the smeets die! Of COURSE he knew saying she was with egg would be my weakness." She smashed her hand into the wall hard enough to leave a dent in the fake plaster. "I am such an idiot!"

"I don't think you're stupid," Skoodge said meekly from behind the chair he was using as the first line of defense between himself and Violet's wild fists. She was breathing hard, her antennae sticking up in a highly irritated manner, her eyes wild. "Most Irkens wouldn't have cared if they were killing a smeet or not! Doesn't that count for something?"

A hint of the acid left her eyes as she flopped back down into the makeshift bed. "You're right. It does," she sighed. "I just feel like I've been taken for a ride. I hate being taken for a ride."

"Hey, it happens to the… best of us?" Skoodge said with a mild shrug, although inwardly he hadn't quite yet come to terms with how many times the tallests had taken him for a ride by promising him status and positions they never truly intended to let him have.

Violet laughed, her voice cold as it echoed across the walls of Zim's base. It was the laugh of neither normal man nor woman, but the laugh of someone who has cultivated a displeasing taste for pain so fine it could be used as a needle. "I'm hardly the best of you."

"You might be if you stopped putting yourself down all the time." Violet stared hard at Skoodge, and he once again sought refuge behind a chair. He could only imagine what her muscular arms and legs could do to his tender, soft tissues.

"Oh… bite me!" Violet snapped, storming off to another base. The problem was, the advice Irkens most need to hear is never the advice they most want to hear. 

Downstairs, Zim was in the process of concocting a giant, slobbering squirrel creature with flaming red eyes. "Now," he said aloud to no one in particular but the computer. "I expose it to the scent of that impostor Zim, taken from a scrap of fabric I ripped from his uniform during the fight, and expose the rabid flesh eating fur beast to it so that it will track down and devour that fake Zim. After all, this planet is only big enough for one Zim!"

As much as the computer felt it agreed with that statement, it felt obligated to interject. "But, sir, don't you have the same scent as Murderer Zim?"

"Do not question Zim's genius! I am the REAL Zim! Of course I smell different!"

"Unless Murderer Zim smells different from day-old nachos and weenie sauce, I really don't think there's going to be much of a difference…"

"SILENCE!" Zim shouted, flailing his arms in the air as he pushed the "scent inject" button. The squirrel coughed and blinked in irritation as an aerosol puff sprayed in its face. Zim pressed the button to release the squirrel… which, of course, headed straight for him.

Upstairs, Violet paused. "Do you hear Zim screaming?" she asked.

"Myeeeep," Skoodge replied, looking boredly in the direction of the bloodcurdling shrieks.

"Think we should save him?"

Skoodge looked down at his hands. "We should…"

"The tea will get cold," Violet interjected. "Let's finish our tea and then go bail out what's left of him."

Skoodge was about to agree. "Sorry… I'm just too nice of guy to let anyone suffer. Even if it is Zim we're talking about." With that, he pushed away the tea and headed off the direction of the screaming, laser drawn, hoping in all of his hearts that Zim wouldn't try to feed HIM to whatever was making those roaring and crashing noises downstairs.

Violet stared after him, letting her tea get cold anyway. She wasn't hungry or thirsty after that comment. Hadn't that been what her entire career as Spork's torture master had been about? Trying to relieve the suffering of the condemned, no matter what their crimes?

Violet rubbed her aching head, suddenly feeling more homesick than she had since her arrival. She wanted to go back to her own dimension. Things were clearer there, things made sense there. Everything here seemed to be in shades of gray that flowed together and turned into funny optical illusions before her dark, lavender eyes.

Not to mention that her small egg, Spork's only true heir by her, was waiting for her to return. She hadn't wanted to go to the other dimension, but the dimensional cross was wrecking havoc on her home dimension, and it was far too risky of mission for the new tallests to attempt themselves. So she'd become the default rescuer, leaving her egg in her universe's Tak and Skoodge's capable care while she hunted down Murderer Zim.

That tiny egg, more than anything else, was the reason she didn't want to get involved with Skoodge. If Murderer Zim's presence in the other dimension was causing trouble, then it meant she'd also have to return to her own dimension. Even if she could find a way to stay with him, what would happen to her son or daughter?

Violet dumped the tea into the sink. Cold tea was worse than no tea at all.

---

Promotional Ad for A Really Cool Story: www.fanfiction.net/ read.php?storyid=1402849

(Remove the space to make it work, ff.net has some kind of block on uploading html addresses.) 


	10. The Moons Are Out

On the other side of town, the other two Irkens living in the "quaint little hamlet" were wide-awake as well. Murderer Zim dodged sideways, narrowly avoiding taking a spider leg directly to the middle. Tak's swing came close enough to leave a tiny, bleeding red line across his midsection as he cowered against the wall, just out her reach. The poor young male had never felt so helpless in all his life…

"YoudidthistomeI'mgoingtokillyouifit'sthelastthingIdoandyou'regoingtosufferohhowI'mgoingtomakeyousufferIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE," her one-word scream was cut off by her back arching violently, her chest heaving.

"You didn't tell me!" he cried, the great assassin Zim cowered into a corner like a smeet with the cookie jar still trapped on his hand. "I mean, I would have thought you'd get FAT or something…"

"Do chickens get fat? Do alligators get fat? Do turtles get fat?" she shrieked, her legs reaching out and knocking over a shelving unit with a loud, metallic clatter.

"I don't know what a chicken, an alligator, or a turtle is!" Murderer Zim cried in defense of himself, trying to use a trash can lid to fend off those wild mechanical legs so that he could get closer to her. "Stop thrashing around, I'll manually disconnect your legs!"

"Like hell you will! I'll run you oieieie ow ow ow ow!" 

"Calm down! Breathe… or something…" Breathing would probably be good at the moment. Her skin had taken on a dark green blush and her chest was inflating and deflating faster than Invader Zim's pride during one of his latest great plans.

"Let's switch places and I'll tell you to breathe!" she screamed, her mechanical legs colliding with Murderer Zim's makeshift shield and ripping it out of his hands.

With a helpless "Meep!" he ducked another swinging spider legs, diving under the table she'd commandeered for her attack post. His fingers trailed over the bottles rolling all over the floor. "Sedative, sedative, sedative… AH! Sedative!" he cried, shakily loading up a syringe. 

But, the frantic screaming and swearing above had been replaced by one long, steady cry of anguish that seemed to be slowly but surely increasing in pitch. Standing up, sedative in hand, he was just in time to see one tiny egg plop down in a mess of egg mucus and blood, and rolls slightly across the table before coming to a stop.

Running around like a chicken without a head on, Murderer Zim finally managed to locate a towel and run back over to the table, where Tak had fallen limp. Her breathing ran ragged and her eyes glazed over with a combination of pain and amazement at what her body could do, simply by virtue of the fact that she'd been popped out of the cloning tube a female.

The egg nearly squirted out of his hands three times before he finally dried the laying mucus off of it. By that time, poor wounded Tak was beginning to come too, feeling a bit like she'd been hit by a two ton truck but the truck had dumped a sack full of money in her hand on the way over her body.

"Is that it?" he asked, a bit dismayed. Three eggs was a normal brood size, not one.

"What do you mean, is that it? You want to give me a second chance to skewer you with me legs?" she snapped. Her legs had, by that point, gone limp and lay like dead things about her.

"Well," he said, trying to defend himself, "It's kind of… puny."

"It's father was kind of puny, and not just where height is concerned." Murder Zim cringed, knowing when he'd been burned.

"I am not puny!"

"You're right. Microscopic is a better word for it! Do you ever get accused of being a girl in the men's bathroom?"

"That's it! Those are fighting words! Put em' up!" he cried, however, the bundled egg in his arms was preventing him from making fists. "Uh… hold this," he said, handing the egg over and putting up his fists. "All right, let's go."

Tak simply stared at him, letting the absurdity of the moment sink in. Finally, she simply threw back her head and laughed. Around that time, modesty began to return to her flushed body as well, and she adjusted the somewhat stains around her in a manner more benefiting an Irken lady. 

Murderer Zim sighed and let his hands fall to his sides. "Imagine, me… the most deadly assassin ever to live within Spork's Empire… standing face to face with my own egg! I mean, stuff like this doesn't happen to guys like me, does it?"

Tak snorted. "Not to intrude on your soap opera, but puny egg or not, I'm exhausted," she said, proceeding over to the experiment box. She sighed a bit, feeling disappointed in herself as well. She'd prepared the incubator box for three good sized eggs, and that one miserably tiny egg… just didn't seem to fit. She'd heard that a lot of other females who had spent time on Dirt produced sickly eggs or no eggs at all… but in her heart, she hadn't believed that could honestly happen to _her. _

"Well, I'm awake now…" Murderer Zim sighed, rubbing his antennae. Tak seemed to pay no attention to his comment, instead fussing over the exact position of the egg. Mothers of any species were the oddest sort of creatures, Murderer Zim thought in his head. "

"I'm sorry… I'm dead tired," Tak answered. "I just want to be back to bed and collapse."

He put an arm around her, lifting her up in the traditional carrying the bride across the threshold position. "Ssh, it's okay. I'll tuck you in for the night, and tomorrow I'll tell you about my brilliant plan."

"Brilliant plan?"

"Oh, yes… you could call it a "heinous hinney plan.'" 

Tak stared at him with one half-shut violet eye. "And I thought Invader Zim was weird…"

"Now, you, I take that as an insult!" Murderer Zim joked back, pulling back the sheets Tak hadn't taken with her on the bed. He lay her down as best the bulge of her pack would allow him too, tucking her in from the toes to the neck. She was already asleep, her chest rising and falling with slow breaths, by the time he finished his work. "Sleep tight, my angel. You know I'd die for you," he whispered as he kissed her head, crawling in next to her and wrapping his arms around her.

"So, that's my plan!" Murderer Zim finished with a flourish, the still half-asleep Tak lying with her head on his chest.

"But… if you destroy the whole planet… won't that mean breaking your promise to Dib?"

Murderer Zim chuckled slightly. "It's war, babe, and sometimes a few promises need to be broken. Come on. We need to start packing up the base so we can be out of here before the big boom arrives.

Tak nodded, yawning and sitting up. "I wanted to run a scan on the egg today… make sure nothing's… you know… wrong…"

"It's a bit small, but the smaller the cuter the smeet, right?" Murderer Zim replied, trying to calm the fluttering in his heart that said something was, indeed, not quite right with the situation. 

---

This is only a half chapter but I won't be able to update for awhile and I'm dead, DEAD tired, so I can't finish right now… typos will be fixed when I upload the full chapter.


	11. Midori

Sorry this update is so long overdue, but I got severe, severe writer's block on where to go with it next. What I have currently written doesn't fit too well into what I had planned to write, which has me in a dilemma. So I'm just going to see where this rock of a story rolls to, and hope it doesn't smash any cars on it's way down. –IA

Murderer Zim paced back and forth, pulling on his antennae. "Two months, three weeks, and six days!" he shouted, waving his stubby arms in the air. "Two months, three weeks, and six days of having to make sure Violet doesn't leap out from behind some corner at me with a burlap sack, or Zim doesn't try to push my head in the drinking fountain, or those useless IDIOT humans I command won't make my head explode from their stupid stupidity-ness!"

Tak threw a shoe, which smacked Murderer Zim in the back of the head. "Quiet! I don't want her first sight ever to be her naked father ranting about how long it took her to hatch. Go put some clothes on for the tallests sake!"

Murderer Zim grinned and wiggled his hips. "I'm, too sexy for my uniform, too sexy for my…" Tak hit him square in the mouth with her other shoe, cutting his song short. He fell over backwards, hitting his head with a dull thud on the metal floor.

Tak leaned over the incubator. "Come on out, little one! I can see the cracks in your egg, I know you want to…"

As if on command, another crack appeared, followed by a pale green leg sticking out of the bottom of the shell. Another slow crack, and part of the shell fell away, revealing a tiny, wrinkled green body blinking angrily at the light suddenly assaulting her eyes. Tiny antennae with curled tips pressed flat against her head, and she cried in the light's direction.

Her mother reached in and wrapped her arms gently around the smeet, pulling her out of the shell and pressing the tiny body against her own. "Sssh, ssssh, it's okay," Tak soothed as MiMi watched cautiously from a distance, uncertain of what to make of a tiny version of her master.

The smeet blinked and cooed, sticking out her stubby tongue at her mother. By that time, however, Tak had set about to cleaning the clingy remains of the shell and yolk off her tiny daughter's body, the daughter crying "Iee iee!" with each brush against her skin.

Murderer Zim, clad in a towel he'd put on simply to please Tak's sense of decency, frowned as his own antennae flattened back against his head. Tak may have been too wrapped up in the moment of new motherhood to notice, but he wasn't. The new smeet… only had one leg.

Her left leg dangled down and kicked as her mother cleaned the yolk remains from her antennae. Her right leg, however, was little more than a stump extending from the base of her naked torso. Her arms, eyes, and antennae all seemed fine, it was just that, that one absent leg was about as obvious as a purple-skinned Irken. 

"What do you think?" Tak asked, holding the tiny smeet up. The smeet cocked her head at Murderer Zim, then stuck out her tongue again.

Murderer Zim's heart sighed deeply, feeling proud enough to be face to face with his own daughter that she could have been missing all her limbs and he wouldn't have cared. His mind, however, was spinning. She'll never make it through training like that, it sneered. You'd better find a mate who can give you healthy offspring.

"She's beautiful," his mouth said, ignoring the bitter banter of his mind. "She looks… well, she looks just like me!"

Tak blinked. "What do you mean, just like you? She's got my eyes and my antennae."

"She's got my skin, my head, my… uh… fingers! And my pack, too," he said, spinning around and wagging his pack at Tak in a supposedly alluring manner.

Tak rolled her eyes, but of course, being an Irken it wasn't possible to tell that she'd done so merely by looking at her. "What should be call her?"

"If you'd allow me… Spork always said that if he had a daughter, he'd name her Midori… and now that Spork's gone, he can't, so I was hoping we could…"

"Midori's a beautiful name," Tak said reassuringly, petting Murderer Zim's arm. She looked about the nearly empty base and signed. "I almost wish she could have had some time growing up on Earth. I mean, I've spent so much time here I've almost gotten attached to the stupidity of this planet…"

"But we can't stop the Armada, curly-antennae," he replied, using what he knew to be her favorite pet name. "And they should be here by the end of the week…"

"How do you know they'll come?"

Murderer Zim smiled. "Oh, trust me. They'll come."

Murderer Zim thought back to the day after his daughter's egg was laid. Hacking Invader Zim's transmission line, he'd contacted the tallests.

"Yes, Zim, what do you want?" The red-eyed one had groaned dismissivly while playing with a puppet that looked oddly like himself.

"I just wanted to tell you guys how highly I think of you. And I wanted to tell you that- YOU SUCK!"

THAT had gotten their attention, as well as the attention of every Irken in the control room. Thousands of pairs of eyes had focused on him. That should have made Murderer Zim nervous, but he was on a roll. "You're the worst leaders the Irken Empire has ever had! I mean, you're probably too busy making gay love to one another to notice if the Meekrob army wiped out six planets! All you ever do is eat, eat, eat… and don't think the rest of the Empire doesn't know what those silly looking corsets are for! You guys must be HUGE when you don't have them on!"

"I'm… not… fat," the violet-eyed tallest whined.

"Oh, stop being such a cry baby! Everyone knows you're the bitch."

"The wha…"

"It means, you're on the bottom, baby."

There were a few moments of staring before the purple-eyed tallest broke into hysterical tears and burst out of the room, leaving several attendants to stare after him. By that time, however, the red-eyed tallests eyes flashed fire. His fingers were dug into the chair he'd been sitting in, his claws ripping straight through the vinyl and exposing the stuffing the chair was padded with.

"If this is your idea of some kind of joke, Zim…"

"No, THIS is my idea of some kind of joke!" he cried, spinning around and bending over, pulling down his pants in one swift movement. Two crude drawings of the tallests stared out from Zim's green butt. "Kiss my ass!" he cried, wiggling his butt back and forth. 

Purple, who had returned to retrieve his soda, froze in the doorframe and promptly doubled over, vomiting out a morning's worth of donuts onto a poor communications officer's head. Red was curled up in a ball, his eyes as wide as they could get, his face pale and his body trembling. "Make it stop, make it stop!" he screamed.

The communications officers were frozen in place, unable to so much as react until the tallest shrieked "make it stop" loudly enough to shatter crystal, which jarred them out of their stupor enough to make them run to hit the controls to cut the transmission.

The scene in the control room of the Massive was absolute chaos. Red was curled up in a ball, covering his closed eyes with his claws and shrieking incoherently. Purple was sprawled out on top of the poor communications officer, both of them dripping with his vomit, bawling his eyes literally out of his head.

It took three tranquilizers and four strong military commanders to pry Red out of his chair, and for two days thereafter Purple remained near comatose, occasionally waking up from his hospital bed to scream "The horrible buttchecks! HORRIBLE!" before the nurses would run in and re-tranquilize him. 

So, back home, Murderer Zim was pretty damn sure the Armada was coming to crush the Earth and Invader Zim in the processes. If they weren't, he didn't know what to do, as he wasn't sure what WOULD finally bring them to Earth. He couldn't think of much that would scare them more than that. Then again, maybe he'd scared them to the point where they wouldn't even think of coming near the Earth…

Back at his base, Invader Zim screamed angrily at his computer. "Come ON!" he shouted. "Make a connection with the tallests!"

"I told you… connection has been refused, for the last time!"

"Then… then force your way through!"

In the background, Skoodge and Violet were playing some sort of Irken card game. Violet studied her hand and frowned. "I hate my own dealing!" she whined.

"At least we know you're not cheating then," Skoodge said, making another high-point play.

"Argh! If I started cheating, maybe I'd only lose by half as many points!" she snarled. 

"How's your son doing?" Skoodge asked as he watched her struggle to make a play.

"I talked to him via the interdimensional communicator just yesterday," she sighed. "He's doing just fine… DAMN IT!" she screamed, slamming her fists into the table they were sitting at. "I want to go home and see him! Why can't I catch Murderer Zim?" She grabbed the alcohol bottle off the table and downed another long drink.

Skoodge's antennae twitched. Violet had discovered booze by accident while meandering aimlessly around town, and had become the biggest boozehound Irken Skoodge had ever had a chance to encounter in his life. 

"If you didn't drink so much, maybe you'd be able to…"

She swung the bottle at him. "Don't tell me what to do! You don't control me!" she shouted, her face somewhat flushed. With that, she knocked all the cards on the floor and stormed out of the room. Skoodge's antennae drooped. He liked Violet so much… he hated to see her wrecking herself that way.

Before Skoodge could pursue her, however, Zim's computer forced it's way through the blocking controls and opened up a line to the tallests. Red was patting Purple's trembling hand, sighing. "It's okay, you're safe now, you're safe…"

Then the screen came on. At the sight of Zim poor Purple screamed and clawed his way half way up the wall, clinging to the tapestries like some kind of monkey and crying. Red glared at the screen, eyes glowing with anger. "You've got some nerve to call us after what you did!" he hissed, smoke fairly rising from his antennae.

"Huh? What did I do? Was it splendid!"

"You scarred him for life!" Red shouted, pointing a finger at Purple, who was still trembling as he hung from the draperies. "And not to mention the therapy bills I'm going to ring up…"

Invader Zim's chest puffed out. "I know I'm impressive, but I didn't know I was THAT impressive!" he said, assuming that his greatness was what had terrified the two tallests.

"No! It wasn't impressive! It was hideous!" Red shrieked. "I'll never stop having nightmares…"

Not only was Zim confused by that point, but Skoodge as well. "What exactly did he DO?" Skoodge asked from the background, causing Zim to turn around and give him a glare of death.

"I don't want to talk about it!" Red shouted, waving his arms angrily in the air. Right at that moment, Purple lost his grip on the draperies and fell on Red's head. With a sound like spines breaking the two collapsed onto the floor, and the transmission cut out.

Skoodge frowned. He hadn't liked how the tallests were behaving at all… as soon as Zim sulked out of the room, grumbling about how the tallests didn't appreciate his plans, Skoodge jumped up to the computer console.

Fat fingers flying over the keys, he pinpointed the location and flight formation of the Massive and its surrounding ships. His eyes widened as the statistics came up. It was making a beeline for Earth… with the organic sweep team leading the pack.

Skoodge ran to the elevator and endured getting near motion sickness as the jerking canister carried him to the top floor, where Violet was sprawled out on the couch watching television. "Violet! Violet! The Armada is coming to destroy the Earth!"

Violet looked at him out of one eye. "Isn't that a good thing? You and Zim are invaders, after all…"

"I think they're coming to destroy us, too… look, the tallests were being really weird! I think Murderer Zim is responsible, and I don't know what he's up to, but…"

"Who cares?" Violet asked, waving her bottle about. "If they kill him that means I can finally go home."

"But if they destroy us all, doesn't that include you?" Skoodge grabbed the bottle out of her hand and slapped her hard across the face. "Come on, Violet, snap out of it! Think of your son!" 

Her dark eyes blinked, then welled up with tears. "You're right! I've been so horrible!" she cried, burying her face in her chest. 

"I'd be a lot more inclined to believe that you meant that if you were sober," Skoodge frowned. "Stay here."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm going to drain out all the bottles of booze you dragged home!"

She clung to his leg. "You can't!"

"Come on, Violet! The armada is coming and we've got to do something, and you're no good for anything drunk off your ass!"

She blinked. "You want to… save this planet, don't you?"

Skoodge smiled only slightly. "It's the only place I've ever really felt at home. Now come on, we've got to think of a plan."

-BTW I didn't have time to do a final spell check. Sorry…


	12. In Which No One Gets Anywhere

As for this chapter: Better late than never!!!

Violet blinked as Skoodge's ship vanished off into the blackened, starry night. It was funny how the stars blinked from the ground. Something about the nature of the gases in Earth's atmosphere. She couldn't imagine being so attached to such a funny planet, but he was.

"How is one Irken going to stop the armada?" she wondered as she wandered through the yellow sodium lighted streets, feeling the shiver of Earth's wind through her Irken fabrics. That wasn't her concern, however. Her simple, immediate concern was to go to Murderer Zim's base, burst in, and kill him before a single word could escape from his lying mouth.

Getting into the base wasn't the hard part. She just waited until she saw one of the sausage slave humans, hit him over the head, and dragged his greasy body into a bush where she stole his clothes and his identification.

Violet felt disgusted. The grease on the uniform was trying to stick to her powder green skin, and almost felt like it was crawling about on the surface of her body. She'd rather have had to charge into the base naked except for her laser if she wouldn't have been spotted right away. Green skin, it seemed, wasn't exactly normal on Earth.

Meanwhile, Tak watched the clock on the wall, waiting from the time to meet Murderer Zim on one of the outer travelling bases. He'd gone there to make preparations for their hasty departure while Tak remained behind, heating up a meal of mushy vegetables and juice for Midori, who was burbling cutely in the next room and bouncing up and down in her high chair.

"Just a minute, dear," Tak called as she finished fixing the food. "There, all stirred up." She inserted the silver spoon into the infant's mushies and headed into the next room.

Violet, rounding the corner, spotted her instantly. As Tak lifted her hand, Violet caught a flash of silver. Her heart jumped in her chest. Tak was going to shoot at her! As quickly as her arms could rise from her sides, she steadied her laser and fired.

Tak didn't even have time to scream as the blast tore through her lung and out the other shoulder. She collapsed to the ground, throwing the bottle of baby food up in the air. It seemed to spin around in slow motion right before Violet's eyes, and then land next to Tak's outstretched hand.

Violet trembled. She'd got her. She'd got the… the tiny, confused squeak of a smeet stopped her train of thoughts dead. No, no, no… No… Murderer Zim couldn't have been… not the truth…

She ran around the corner, long antennae flying out wildly behind her. There, sitting before Tak's body, was a tiny infant smeet. The smeet watched confusedly as a halo of thick, dark Irken blood spread around the place where Tak had fallen, her eyes closed and her legs drawn up in a near fetal position. Her arms were outstretched for the smeet she'd been trying to reach as she fell.

Violet fell to her knees, weeping. "Why? Why?" Lifting her eyes, she spotted a slight breath escaping the fallen girl's mouth. "Maybe there's still time," she cried, sweeping Tak and the infant up into her arms. "I have to get them back to Zim's base! His medical… his medical…" With that, Violet took off into the night, not caring if anyone saw her running with the undisguised forms of two female aliens.

Meanwhile, Skoodge was busily wandering space in his Voot Runner, wondering how the hell one Irken was going to stop an Invasion. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't notice the other, black ship shooting out from the shadow of a satellite and heading straight for him.

The impact jarred Skoodge as his head hit the metal side of his ship from the force throwing him out of his seat. He managed to get his ship under control while hanging upside down from the seat.

Panting from the surprise of the blow, he looked through the pink dome of his own ship into the dark blue shield of Murderer Zim's ship. Murderer Zim smiled, showing off fang-like sharp teeth. "Die, please," Murderer Zim smiled as his ship lowered a laser and pointed it directly in Skoodge's direction.

Back on Earth, Violet practically tore the door off of Zim's base. "Computer!" she cried. "I've got a wounded Irken here! Please hurry, help!"

The computer peered down. "Master won't like it if you help his enemy… I'll do it."

Violet smiled in a worn-out way. "Thanks."

Zim, meanwhile, was oblivious to what was happening because he'd fallen asleep on his newest project and was unaware that his drooling was ruining his precious project. GIR, at the same time, had a sobbing Crazy Taco employee tied up in the corner and was in the process of eating the Taco costume off his body.

The computer was cautiously working over Tak's limp form while Violet guiltily held Midori. "The damage is extensive, but she's hanging on."

"She's fighting for her life. Probably to see her daughter and her hideous love again," Violet sighed, adjusting the infant against the smooth fabrics of her royal uniform. "But if Skoodge can't stop the Armada, it doesn't matter. We'll all die." Violet paused and patted the baby's antennae. "Do you computers believe in the afterlife?"

"We believe in reincarnation. I had an uncle that came back as a toaster oven," the computer replied, sounding bored as usual. 

Violet looked up into the sky through the gaudily decorated window. "I hope Skoodge is okay…"

Skoodge, meanwhile, was frantically dodging Murderer Zim's laser. "Critical hit!" the onboard computer cried as the ship shook.

"I know, I could feel it!" Skoodge shouted back, clutching onto the controls and wishing that Voot runners had seat belts. Maybe if he lived through this, he'd install some. 

"Come back here, you coward! Running won't save you!" Murderer Zim shouted, and in his heart, Skoodge knew he was right. Come on, he'd conquered the planet of the rats. There had to be SOMETHING he could do to stop Murderer Zim.

Off in the distance, a glimmering light marked the approach of the scout ship for the Irken armada. Like sand through an hourglass, time was ticking down. If he didn't do something soon, he'd be dead, and that was absolutely no fun at all.

"Where is Tak?" Murderer Zim muttered when they shot past the space station only for him to notice the interior lights were still dark. "She should have evacuated by now… computer, call my mate while I take care of this pest."

"She's not answering, sir. She's not in the base and the transport ship is still parked."

Murderer Zim slammed on his brakes, not caring if Skoodge escaped. He'd catch him later. "WHAT?"

"I've searched the base. She's not there, but as you can see from the footage, the ship is still parked and ready for launch. Look, your suitcases are still sitting by the side of them."

"The armada's almost here. She should have loaded them by now… something must have happened…" Murderer Zim looked off at the approaching ships. "I have to go down there and find out where she is!"

"Is there enough time?"

"I'm not leaving without her!" he cried as his ship plummeted into orbit.

Skoodge, noticing that he was suddenly not being fired upon, looked around in confusion. "Where'd he go?"

"He's heading for Earth," the onboard computer answered.

"Earth… Violet will have to handle him. I have to stop the Armada… somehow…"


	13. The Dramatic, Tragic, and sorta Cute End...

Murderer Zim's ship nearly crashed when he landed at the base. "Tak? Tak?" he called frantically, running through the hallways with his antennae held high. Several of the ordinary workers jumped a bit when the little green man ran past them, screaming at the top of his lungs. Then they shrugged, figured it was a costume stunt to sell meat, and returned to their everyday lives.

Murderer Zim tore through the emptied living quarters, shrieking as he overturned the couch. "Tak? Midori? TAK!"

Running into the dinning room, his eyes focused immediately on the crimson stain spreading in front of Midori's empty high chair. A broken bottle of smeet snackies lay spilled across the carpet.

There was a slow moment when nothing seemed to exist in his mind, as he slowly collapsed onto his knees. "Tak… Midori…" his voice came out in the chokes. "Oh, baby, I'm sorry that I judged you for your missing leg… come back to me… please come back to me…"

Tears, a sensation that he hadn't felt since Spork had found him sniveling and ready to end his life, rose up into his face as a knot formed in his throat. They were gone, leaving behind only stains on the carpet. His beautiful, beautiful baby girl resting in her mother's arms… they'd departed from the world, and he'd never see them again.

His grief was so great that the armada became forgotten, and he lay within the sticky halo that he thought was all that remained of his family.

Back at Zim's base, Violet watched Tak's chest heave. The girl was barely hanging on, but definitely fighting for her life. No matter how much pain her body must have been in, she wasn't ready to give up.

Midori sniffled and whimpered, burying her hungry face in Violet's chest. Violet hadn't thought to bring any smeet food when she'd carried Tak's lifeless form back to the base, and the smeet was hungry. Violet patted her sadly on the back. "I'm sorry, baby, I don't have any smeet food. Maybe I can grind up some apples for you… apples seem to be an Earth food that doesn't hurt us too badly."

Violet carried the smeet into the kitchen and looked heavenward. "Skoodge… I hope you're doing better than I am."

Meanwhile, Skoodge was sitting on top of a satellite that had been captured by his ship. The gloves of his space suit were a bit too thick for his tastes, but what else could be done? He was trying to modify the satellite to give out a "quarantine space" signal, hoping that the Armada wouldn't enter a quarantine space even to blow it up.

"And after all this," Skoodge muttered, "I'll save the Earth so Zim can continue to try destroying it, and he'll STILL say I never do anything to help out around the house." Skoodge's thoughts drifted for just a moment. He wished he could return to Violet's dimension. He wished he could be with her…

Shaking foolish thoughts out of his head, he returned to working.

Meanwhile, trouble had brewed on Invader Zim's base. "What is SHE doing here?" Zim screamed, pointing at the sleeping and stitched up Tak lying on his couch.

"I accidentally shot her. Your computer did what it could to fix her, but she's still not con-"

"You used MY computer to fix MY worst enemy? Without asking ME?" Invader Zim screamed.

"Yes, I DID." Violet screamed back, stomping over to Zim until her overly tall, lanky body loomed like a demonic shadow over Zim. "And right now, Skoodge is-" Violet froze. The armada coming to Earth was just what Invader Zim wanted. Of course that wasn't news that would make him happy.

"Skoodge is whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" Zim asked, cocking an eye suspiciously.

"Nothing."

"Oh, I think there is something."

"No, no there isn't."

"Yes, yes there is!"

"Isn't!"

"Is!"

"Isn't!"

Midori let out the high pitched wail of an angry smeet, causing Invader Zim to jump backwards and cover his antennae. "Sonic attack! Unfair! Sonic attack!"

"That's just Midori," Violet scoffed. "Tak's smeet."

Invader Zim looked like he'd been struck. "You brought not only my worst enemy, but her disgustingly one-legged disgusting smeety thing?"

"She's cute, not disgusting," Violet snapped, hugging the smeet defensively.

"And Skoodge…"

"He's cute too, but in a different way."

"I meant, where IS he?" Invader Zim snarled, getting agitated. Violet looked nervously away. "Look, it's that Scary Monkey show!"

"ZIM is not so easily distracted!" he cried, and then promptly looked over at the screen and shivered. "That monkey."

Violet took the opportunity of the moment his attention was divided to disappear into the kitchen, prematurely ending the argument.

Up in space, Skoodge's ship gave off a shrill alarm. He peered up, and then dove inside just in time to avoid Murderer Zim's ship as it whizzed past, smashing the satellite into pieces.

Murderer Zim's eyes flashed fire, and his zipper teeth seemed to have mutated into fangs. His eyes were a more brilliant red than the terrified Skoodge had ever seen before. "Without them, there's no reason for me to live! And I'm taking this miserable death trap of a planet with me!" he shrieked.

Skoodge shot off with Murderer Zim still hot on his trail, and the Armada growing ever closer. In the back of Skoodge's mind, a plan began to form. He quickly banked his ship to the left, drawing Murderer Zim after him. A burst of laser fire tore through the back of his ship, letting cold air in. Quickly Skoodge activated the repair mechanism, before a dangerous vacuum could form and puff him up like a marshmallow. Reaching the Armada before Murderer Zim got him was the all-important key, the moment of salvation…

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Tak's heavy eyelids began to flutter. Her upper body ached like she'd just been sentenced to a long torture session in the prisons of the Massive, a sensation she'd had to endure after being punished for her first and failed attempt at escaping from the planet Dirt.

Her arms felt empty. "Mi-Mi-Mi," she choked out, calling not for her forgotten robot but her precious, missing smeet. Violet, being chased by an angered Invader Zim through the kitchen, didn't hear her whimpered cries. Tak tried to lift her arms, only to find that either they were bound of had been damaged to the point where they no longer obeyed her. 

She fell back down onto the operating table, her eyes too dry to weep. "You shouldn't move. You'll rip your stitches out."

Her body froze. That wasn't the voice of her computer, yet it was the voice of an Irken computer… Gods, no… no… she couldn't be in Zim's base! She couldn't! She… she didn't know where in the hell she would be if not in Zim's base.

With a feeling of dread growing like a knot in the pit of her stomach, she sank down back onto the coldness of the table. She was his prisoner… and Gods only know what he'd do to poor, innocent, baby Midori.

Violet had escaped from Invader Zim long enough to realize the hungry Midori was giving off a rather… foul scent. Gagging, Violet changed her diaper. "I wonder if my son will be this bad… he hatched, and I haven't even got to hold him…" Violet dried her eyes. "I wonder if I should return to my home dimension now. This Earth is all but doomed… but if Murderer Zim isn't killed here or captured and brought back, my dimension will be doomed too… DAMN HIM!" she screamed into empty air.

"Da he?" baby Midori asked, wiggling her bare smeet butt and sucking on her toes. 

"Yes… I mean, no! That's not something I want you saying for your first words," she said, tickling the smeet's feet and making her giggle. 

"Peh!" said Midori, shaking her rattle. The few bits of apple Violet had given her before she'd doodied her diaper seemed to have done a world of good for the infant's mood. 

"You like apple, don't you?" Violet picked her up and finished diapering her. "Where I come from, we have all kinds of apples. Apples year round. The red tallest, he loves apples. He loves them so much I just know you two would get along." Violet blew on the smeet's antennae, causing the smeet to flatten them against her head and wrinkle up her face. "You're so beautiful. I can't believe your father was a bastard like Murderer Zim."

"Oh, you bastard," Skoodge sighed to himself when one of Murderer Zim's lasers hit his back rocket thruster, sending his ship spiraling through space.

"We can't take many more hits like that!" the onboard computer cried, fearing for it's own mechanical life.

"I understand that, but I have to get to the Armada!"

"Why? They'll blow you up as likely as they'll blow him up!"

"At least then I'd save Violet, and my life wouldn't have been worth something," Skoodge snapped back, silencing his computer. Taking a deep breath, he pushed down on the controls and forced the ship to dive downward, plunging straight for the first line of defensive of the Armada.

"What's that?" Tallest Purple asked, pointing to a distant light at the edge of the first line of fire for the Armada.

"I don't know… get out the zoom scope!" Red ordered, unnecessarily kicking a poor servant in the side. The servant scuttled off. 

The zoom scope lowered. Red peered into it, with Purple bouncing at his side and crying, "I want to see too! I want to see too! Why do YOU always get to hog the scope? Lemme seeeeeeee!"

"It's Skoodge. He probably came out to greet our mighty fleet and- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Red shot backwards. "ZIM IS IN THE SECOND SHIP!"

Purple climbed up and hid behind the throne. "Kill it kill it kill it!"

The engineers rushed to their positions. Murderer Zim was closing in on the Skoodge. Skoodge shut his eyes. "Been nice knowing you, computer," he commented.

"You too, master."

Right as they expected the final impact, the ship behind them exploded. The burst of energy sent Skoodge's ship hurtling through space, where it nearly crashed into an asteroid. At the last possible second gravity from another large Irken ship caught the gravity of Skoodge's small ship and caused just enough of a correction that only the left booster rocket was torn off the ship and sent hurtling into the blackness of space.

Skoodge, his heart thudding against his chest hard enough to threaten leaping out of it, managed to right his ship using the remaining engines. The armada hovered there in space, as if uncertain of what to do.

"Wow," said tallest Purple.

"Wow," seconded Red.

"So…"

"So…"

"Zim is dead."

"Myep."

"What now?"

"Ummm… go home and have a party?"

"With nachos?"

"With nachos."

With that simple conversation, the Armada turned tail and began disappearing slowly back off into space. The people of Earth would never know how close they had come to extinction… on that particular day, that is.

Skoodge turned his ship around and headed slowly back down to Earth.

And what of Dib, you may be asking. Well, you see, the funny thing about Dib is… he's not always around when he really should be. At that particular moment, Dib was knocking on Tak and Murderer Zim's door. "Hello? Hello? That's funny. No one seems to be home. And I had more videos to show them, too," he shrugged as he pulled up his coat against the chilly air and walked back home.

"So, when they thought Zim was dead, they left?" Violet asked, cradling Midori.

"Uh-huh, and I'm going to do my best to keep Zim from contacting them for as long as possible. I want the Armada to be pretty far away before I try to explain the fact that there were two Zims to the tallests… I don't want to give them any more neurosis than they probably already have right now. And you?"

"Tak has been fading in and out of consciousness… and you and Zim are in no spot to take care of a smeet. I'm taking Midori back to my home dimension with me, to raise with my son. I'll bring her back when she's older… and Skoodge, you'll take care of Tak as best you can for me, won't you?"

Skoodge nodded as Violet pulled out a small device and punched an interdimensional portal hole. "You know, in my world, you and her _are_ lovers." And with that, Violet was gone, leaving Skoodge with his mouth hanging open.

Skoodge sighed and sat down on the floor next to Tak's limp body. "Leave it to a woman like that to make an exit like that," he said into the empty air.

The End

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

Or perhaps not. Mere seconds before the laser impact would have destroyed Murderer Zim, he jettisoned his fuel tanks and pressed a button he'd specially built to allow himself to return to his home world. But the button had failed, leaving Murderer Zim floating alone in a black limbo with no fuel. However, he had tons of snacks, and he had tools… he was going to fix that interdimensional portal or die trying…


End file.
